OMPLETE 

Plllllill! 

'GLISH 
G  SHOT 

ALE  BUCKELL 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

EX  LIBRIS 
ERNEST  CARROLL  MOORE 


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THE  COMPLETE  ENGLISH 
WING  SHOT 


UNIFORM   WITH  THIS   VOLUME 

The  Complete  Motorist 

The  Comi'LETE  Golfer 

The  Complete  Photographer 


H.M.    THK    KINO   AS   A   BOY 


THE 

COMPLETE  ENGLISH 

WING  SHOT 


BY 


G.    T.   TEASDALE-BUCKELL 


WITH   FIFTY-THREE   ILLUSTRATIONS 


NEW  YORK:   McCLURE,  PHILLIPS  &  CO. 

LONDON:    METHUEN  &  CO. 

1907 


PREFACE 

WHEN  the  publishers  asked  me  to  write  a  book  upon 
Shooting  and  its  interest,  I  at  first  doubted  whether 
I  knew  enough  of  the  matter  to  fill  a  book  of  much  size 
without  repeating  all  the  traditional  lore  that  is  to  be  found  in 
every  unread  text-book,  but  I  had  no  sooner  undertaken  the 
business  than  I  came  to  a  conclusion  that  has  since  been 
confirmed,  that  to  deal  as  best  I  could,  with  the  kind  help  of 
many  sportsmen,  with  the  controversial  subjects  would  have 
taken  the  whole  space  at  my  disposal  for  any  one  of  them. 
Consequently,  ever  and  again  I  have  had  to  decide  what  to 
eliminate,  and  I  have  tried  to  leave  out  that  which  most  people 
know  already,  and  to  deal  as  best  I  can  in  short  space  with 
questions  that  are  now  more  or  less  under  discussion,  and 
consequently  those  that  game  preservers  and  shooters  in  this 
and  other  countries  are  thinking  about.  It  has  been  very 
difficult  to  draw  a  line  between  the  controversial  and  current 
subjects  and  the  unchallenged  facts  which  have  been  too  often 
repeated  already,  but  that  this  is  the  right  principle  is,  I  think, 
obvious  from  the  position  that  the  opposite  course  would 
involve.  What  is  meant  can  be  best  explained  by  glancing  at 
a  few  traditional  survivals  in  gunnery  and  shooting,  and  its 
accompanying  un-natural  history,  which,  along  with  many 
others,  would  occupy  space  if  one  were  to  attempt  to  deal  with 
all  the  accepted,  as  well  as  the  repudiated,  statements  upon 
them.  Nobody  wants  to  be  told  that  he  should  put  the  powder 
into    a   cartridge-case   before   the   shot,   but   to    begin    at  the 


88.''.023 


vi  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

beginning  would  involve  the  necessity  of  giving  that  and  other 
puerile  information.  Nobody  would  be  the  better  for  a  learned 
chapter  on  gun  actions.  In  the  first  place,  these  actions  are  no 
longer  patents,  they  are  open  to  anyone  who  likes  to  use  them, 
and  consequently  the  days  when  one  selected  a  gun-maker 
because  his  patent  action  was  conceived  to  be  the  better,  are 
long  gone  by.  The  reason  is  that  each  gun-maker  can  be 
trusted  to  use  the  best  principle  when  he  has  a  choice  of  them 
all,  or  at  least  the  best  available  for  the  money  to  be  expended 
upon  its  making  in  the  gun.  Ejectors  are  nearly  in  the  same 
position ;  but  single  triggers  are  not.  I  was  so  fortunate  as  to 
make  a  discovery  in  regard  to  single  triggers  that  is  now 
acknowledged  to  be  of  great  assistance  to  the  gun  trade;  the 
want  of  it  had  for  a  hundred  years  been  the  stumbling-block  to 
the  patent  single  triggers  that  had  begun  to  trouble  gun-makers 
in  the  time  of  the  celebrated  Colonel  Thornton.  That  is 
referred  to  in  its  proper  chapter,  because  single  triggers  now 
occupy  the  place  that  formerly  actions  held,  and  at  a  later  date 
ejector  systems  usurped,  in  assisting  to  the  selection  of  a  gun- 
maker. 

To  begin  at  the  beginning  in  the  repudiation  of  frequently 
accepted  fallacy  possibly  would  not  compel  a  reference  to  the 
sometime  beliefs  that  hares  change  their  sex ;  that  skylarks 
fall  into  snakes'  mouths  after  their  skyward  song — a  statement 
that  troubled  Mr.  Samuel  Pepys,  who,  as  Secretary  to  the 
Admiralty  under  two  protectors  and  two  monarchs,  and  as  a 
member  of  the  Royal  Society,  should  have  been  in  a  position  to 
get  the  best  information.  Nor  would  such  a  beginning  involve 
the  repudiation  of  the  belief  once  held  that  bernicle  geese 
turned  into  "  bernacle "  molluscs,  or  vice  versa.  But  it  would 
oblige  an  author  to  enter  into  repudiation  of  the  oft-stated 
belief  that  nitro  powder  is  quicker  than  black  powder, 
although  big  and  heavily  charged  caps  have  to  be  employed 
for  the  nitro,  whereas  the  small  were  amply  sufficient  for  black 
powder.  One  would  also  be  obliged  to  point  out  that  the 
oft -repeated  prophecy,  that  the  smallest  stock  of  grouse 
bred   the   better   August   crop,  has   been  doomed    to   disaster 


5  < 
5  p 


O   ^ 


PREFACE  vii 

always,  and  that  precisely  the  reverse  is  true.  However, 
there  are  still  people  who  by  what  they  say  must  be  judged 
to  hold  to  the  unproved  proposition  that  the  stones  breed 
grouse. 

It  would  be  necessary  also  to  point  out  that  some  parrot 
cries  are  a  hundred  years  old  and  at  least  forty  years  out  of 
date,  but  are  still  repeated  as  if  they  were  original  and  true. 
Some  of  these  are  that  pointers  have  better  noses  than  setters, 
and  also  require  less  water;  that  cheese  affects  dogs'  noses 
(sanitation  by  means  of  carbolic  acid  does  so,  but  cheese  is 
harmless  enough);  that  Irish  setters  have  more  stamina  and 
pace  than  any  others.  The  latter  statement  I  have  seen  dis- 
proved for  forty  years  at  the  field  trials  in  this  country,  and 
the  former  has  always  failed  to  find  corroboration  at  the 
champion  stamina  trials  in  America.  I  have  had  great  chances 
of  forming  an  accurate  opinion,  as  I  entered  and  ran  dogs  at 
the  English  championship  trials  over  thirty-six  years  ago,  and 
I  am  the  only  one  who  has  ever  judged  at  the  champion  trials 
of  both  England  and  America. 

It  would  be  necessary  also  to  repudiate  the  mistake  that "  foot 
scent "  is  something  exuding  from  the  pad  of  an  animal  and  left 
upon  the  ground  by  the  contact  of  the  feet.  It  would  be 
necessary  to  affirm  that  fat  from  the  adder  is  not  the  best  cure 
for  the  poison  when  dog  or  man  is  bitten,  but  that  raw  whisky 
taken  inwardly  in  large  doses  is ;  and  as  dogs  will  sometimes 
point  these  vipers,  it  might  be  well  to  affirm  that  these  creatures 
do  not  swallow  their  young,  as  is  commonly  supposed.  It 
would  be  necessary  also  to  state  that  when  partridges  "  tower  " 
they  are  not  necessarily,  but  only  sometimes,  hit  in  the  lungs, 
but  have  often  received  a  rap  on  the  head  just  not  enough  to 
render  them  totally  unconscious ;  and  a  case  has  lately  been 
reported  where  two  unshot-at  partridges  in  one  covey 
"  towered  "  and  fell,  and  were  caught  alive,  grew  stronger,  and 
upon  one  of  them  being  killed  it  was  found  to  be  badly  attacked 
by  enteritis,  and  not  by  lung  disease.  And  consequently  the 
myth  about  "  towered  "  partridges  always  falling  dead  and  on 
their  backs  does  not  require  dealing  with,  as  might  have  been 
h 


viii  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

the  case  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  when  nevertheless  the 
phenomenon  was  only  misunderstood  in  the  laboratory,  and  not 
in  the  field  of  sport. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  assert  that  "  pheasant  disease "  as 
commonly  seen  in  the  rearing-fields  is  not  fowl  enteritis,  as  it  is 
so  often  said  to  be,  because  the  foster-mothers  are  hardly  ever 
affected  by  any  illness  when  their  chicks  are  dying  by  hundreds 
of  the  disease.  The  pheasant  disease  has  never  been  subjected 
to  pathological  examination  and  investigation. 

To  start  at  the  beginning  would  make  it  necessary  to  state 
that  the  "  muff  'cock,"  or  the  bigger  woodcock,  that  comes  in  a 
separate  migration,  is  not  the  hen  of  the  smaller  birds,  and  that 
distinction  can  only  be  made  between  the  sexes  by  internal 
examination  of  the  organs.  It  might  be  necessary  in  similar 
circumstances  to  say  that  woodcock  and  snipe  do  not  live  on 
suction,  as  is  often  believed  even  now ;  that  nightjars  and  hedge- 
hogs neither  suck  the  milk  of  goats  nor  cows  ;  that  foxes  do 
not  prefer  rats  and  beetles  to  partridges  and  pheasants;  that 
swallows  do  not  hibernate  at  the  bottom  of  ponds ;  that  badgers 
do  not  prefer  young  roots  to  young  rabbits ;  that  ptarmigan 
and  woodcock  are  not  mute,  and  that  the  former  do  not  live  on 
either  stones  or  heather  ;  that  badgers  can  run  elsewhere  than 
along  the  sides  of  a  hill,  and  that  they  are  not  compelled,  by 
having  the  legs  on  one  side  shorter  than  on  the  other,  to  always 
take  this  curious  course,  which  would  involve  them  in  the  diffi- 
culty of  having  to  entirely  encircle  a  hill  before  getting  back  to 
their  holes  ;  nevertheless,  this  faith  is  still  held  in  some  parts  of 
the  country,  just  as  it  is  said  that  the  heather  bleating  of  the 
snipe  is  a  vocal  sound,  whereas  it  is  often  made  simultaneously 
with  the  vocal  sound. 

I  have  tried  to  avoid  dealing  with  any  such  things  as  these, 
which  may  be  supposed  to  come  within  the  region  of  common 
knowledge  of  any  beginner  in  shooting,  but  another  point  has 
troubled  me  more.  I  have  written  a  good  deal  for  the  press. 
Articles  of  mine  have  appeared  in  The  Times,  The  Morning 
Post,  The  Standard,  The  Daily  Telegraph,  The  County  Gentle7nan, 
Bailey's  Magazine,  The  Sporting  and  Dramatic,  The  Badmintofi 


PREFACE  ix 

Magazine,  Country  Life,  The  Field,  The  Sportsman,  The  National 
Review,  The  Fortnightly  Review,  The  Monthly  Review,  and  else- 
where, and  I  am  afraid  that  I  have  unconsciously  repeated  the 
ideas  running  through  some  of  these  articles,  without  acknow- 
ledgment to  the  various  editors. 

As  Colonel  Hawker  went  to  school  in  gunnery  to  Joe  Manton, 
so  did  Joe  Manton  go  to  school  to  Hawker  in  the  matter  of 
sport.  But  we  have  changed.  That  those  who  make  guns  can 
best  teach  how  to  make  guns  I  do  not  doubt  for  a  moment ;  that 
when  they  write  books  on  the  making  of  guns  those  books  are 
regarded  as  an  indirect  advertisement  is  inevitable,  but  they  are 
none  the  worse  for  that,  if  readers  know  how  to  read  between 
the  lines,  and  it  is  not  necessary  to  go  to  a  shooting  school  to 
do  that.  But  when  gun-makers  add  to  their  business  by  means 
of  books  upon  sport  and  by  "  shooting  schools,"  they  are  turning 
the  tables  on  us.  To  that  I  have  no  objection.  But  when  it  is 
asserted  that  shooting  schools  teach  more  than  the  sport  itself, 
as  has  lately  been  done,  then  I  think  it  is  time  to  protest  that 
even  if  they  could  teach  shooting  at  game  as  well  as  game 
teaches  it  (which  is  absurd),  that  even  then  they  cannot  teach 
sportsmanship,  of  which  woodcraft  is  one  part  and  the  spirit  of 
sport  and  fellowship  another. 

But  the  greatest  value  of  sportsmanship  is,  after  all,  that  idle 
man  should  be  the  more  healthy  an  animal  for  his  idleness. 
Consequently,  when  shooting  parties  are  made  an  excuse  for 
more  smoke  and  later  nights  than  usual,  even  if  the  shooting 
is  not  spoiled  next  day,  less  enjoyment  of  life  follows,  and 
lethargically  apparent  becomes  the  missing  of  that  perfect 
dream  of  health,  that  reaction  after  great  exertion  ought  to 
bring  to  those  who  have  ever  felt  it. 

It  is  often  said  that  big  bags  have  ruined  the  sporting  spirit. 
That  is  not  so  :  big  bags  are  necessary  proofs  that  the  science  of 
preservation  of  game  is  on  the  right  lines,  and  their  publication 
is  also  necessary  on  these  grounds.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  a 
fact  that  hard  walking  is  not  appreciated  as  much  as  it  was 
thirty  years  ago,  and  ladies  can  now  take  just  as  forward  a  place 
in  the  shooting  of  game  and  deer  as  men  can  or  do.     This  is 


X  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

not  all  because  ladies  are  better  trained  physically,  but  because 
sports  have  been  made  much  easier,  than  formerly  they  were. 
Bridle-paths  enable  ponies  to  traverse  the  deer  forests  with 
ladies  on  their  backs,  and  where  that  can  be  done  deer  stalking 
is  not  quite  what  it  was  when  a  Highland  laird  declared  that 
he  saw  no  use  in  protecting  the  deer,  since  nobody  could  do 
them  much  harm.  But  the  wonder  to  me  is  not  that  we  do  not 
like  great  exertion,  but  that  we  ever  did  like  it  for  itself  But 
then  I  speak  as  a  man  in  years,  and  one  who  has  in  the  foolish- 
ness of  youth  killed  a  stag  and  carried  home  his  head,  cut  low 
down,  for  sixteen  miles,  rather  than  wait  for  the  tardy  ponies  to 
bring  it  in  with  the  carcase. 

I  suspect  that  a  change  of  ideas  will  take  place  when  it  is 
discovered  that  driven  -  game  shooting  can,  more  than  any 
other,  be  learnt  at  the  shooting  schools,  and  that  when  the 
trick  is  known  it  becomes  the  easiest  kind  of  shot.  If  it  is 
true  that  the  schools  can  teach  it,  then  everybody  will  learn 
it,  and  what  is  common  property  will  become  as  unfashionable 
as  it  is  the  reverse  at  present.  I  believe  that  half  the  difficulty 
in  the  driven  bird  is  in  thinking  it  is  difficult.  The  fastest 
bird  at  30  yards  range  one  is  likely  to  meet  with  in  a  whole 
season  does  not  require  a  swing  of  the  muzzle  faster  than,  or 
much  more  than  half  as  fast  as,  a  man  can  walk.  What  is 
difficult  in  driven  game  is  shooting  often,  the  swerve  of  the 
game,  the  changes  of  pace  and  angle  of  different  birds  in 
quick  succession,  but  distinctly  not  the  pace.  Before  I  had 
ever  seen  a  grouse  butt,  I  remember  sitting  down  to  watch 
another  party  of  shooters  on  a  distant  hill,  more  than  half  a 
mile  up  wind  of  where  I  sat  to  watch.  I  saw  their  dogs  point, 
and  a  single  bird  rise,  which,  with  many  a  switchback  as  it 
came,  I  watched  traverse  the  whole  distance  between  us,  and 
I  killed  it  as  I  sat.  That  was  my  first  driven  grouse,  but  it 
is  not  by  any  means  why  I  say  that  driven  game  offers  the 
easiest  kind  of  shooting ;  it  is  because  the  average  of  kills  to 
cartridges  are  so  much  better  than  they  are  in  other  kinds  of 
shooting.  Take,  for  instance,  double  rises  at  pigeons,  which 
are  easy  compared  with  double  rises  at  October  grouse,  and  it 


PREFACE  xi 

will  be  noted  that  the  crack  pigeon  shots  do  not  generally 
kill  even  their  first  double  rise  at  25  yards  range,  and  that 
four  or  five  double  rise  kills  are  nearly  always  good  enough 
to  win,  as  also  very  often  is  a  single  double  rise  with  both  birds 
killed.  Very  moderate  grouse  drivers  can  do  better  than  that, 
and  pheasants  that  are  not  very  high  are  slain  in  much  greater 
proportion.  The  fact  is  that  all  shooting  is  extremely  difficult 
if  one  attempts  to  satisfy  the  most  severe  critic  of  all,  namely 
the  man  who  shoots.  But  at  my  age  I  would  much  rather 
think  myself  fit  to  do  a  day's  hard  walking  than  a  day's  hard 
shooting.  I  think  there  are  a  good  many  people  of  that 
opinion,  otherwise  dog  moors  would  not  make  more  rent  per 
brace  than  the  Yorkshire  driving  moors,  but  they  do.  The 
trouble  is  that  places  where  birds  will  lie  to  dogs  are  limited, 
and  it  is  childish  to  drive  packs  of  birds  away  for  the  sake 
of  thinking  one  is  shooting  over  dogs  when  one  is  not 
shooting  at  all,  but  only  doing  mischief.  Personally,  I  would 
not  try  to  shoot  over  good  dogs  on  Yorkshire  grouse.  Bad 
ones  would  not  matter ;  but  then  they  would  give  me  no 
pleasure. 

When  it  was  a  literary  fashion  to  abuse  covert  shooting  as 
butchery  and  grouse  driving  as  no  sport,  it  was  not  done  by 
sportsmen  of  the  other  school ;  and  later,  when  the  literary 
genius  of  the  period  was  turned  in  the  opposite  direction,  and 
we  were  constantly  being  told  that  a  walk  with  a  gun  and  dog 
was  pleasant  but  no  sport,  it  was  only  done  by  those  who 
were  a  little  afraid  of  being  out  of  the  fashion.  I  have  been 
so  unfashionable  as  to  defend  both  by  turns,  and  I  have  always 
been  of  opinion  that  any  sport  which  appeared  to  be  growing 
unpopular  was  worthy  of  the  little  support  I  could  give  it.  It 
will  probably  greatly  surprise  those  who  dare  not,  with 
imaginative  pens,  shoot  at  the  tail  of  a  bird,  to  be  told  that 
Mr.  R.  H.  Rimington  Wilson  recently  informed  me,  that  if  he 
were  to  back  himself  to  kill  a  number  of  shots  consecutively 
he  would  select  driven  birds  in  preference  to  walked-up  game ; 
and  besides,  that  he  preferred  to  be  let  loose  on  a  snipe  bog 
to  his  own,  or  any  other,  big  driving  days.     My  opinion  has 


xii  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

been  that  you  can  always  make  any  sort  of  shooting  a  little 
more  difficult  than  your  own  performance  can  satisfactorily 
accomplish  to  the  gratification  of  your  own  most  critical  sense. 

Driving  game  and  big  bags  are  often,  but  not  always,  acts 
of  game  preserving. 

On  this  subject  I  had  written  a  chapter,  but  fearing  that  I 
had  not  done  that  view  justice,  after  a  conversation  I  had  with 
Captain  Tomasson,  who  has  Hunthill  and  is  the  most 
successful  Scotch  grouse  preserver  by  the  all  driving  method, 
I  asked  him  to  criticise  some  articles  I  had  previously  written 
in  the  Field,  the  sense  of  which  I  have  tried  to  express  again 
in  the  following  pages.  He  very  kindly  did  so,  or  rather 
stated  the  case  for  the  Highlands,  which  I  have  substituted  for 
mine.  It  only  differs  in  one  respect  from  the  sense  of  my  own 
suppressed  chapter — namely,  it  does  not  remark  on  the  difficulty 
of  explaining  why,  if  recent  Scotch  driving  has  partly  defeated 
disease,  even  more  Yorkshire  driving,  prior  to  1873,  never- 
theless preceded  the  worst  and  most  general  Scotch  and 
English  disease  ever  known.  However,  everyone  will  argue 
for  himself:  I  can  only  pretend  to  present  a  mass  of  facts  to 
assist  a  judgment,  but  not  a  quarter  of  those  I  should  like  to 
give  have  I  room  for,  and  I  regret  that  Captain  Tomasson 
is  even  more  restricted  by  space. 

I  have  shot  over  spaniels  in  teams  and  as  single  dogs,  but 
as  I  consider  that  I  know  less  of  them  than  Mr.  Eversfield, 
who  probably  knows  more  than  anyone  else,  I  asked  him  to 
read  and  criticise  my  article,  which  he  promised  to  do.  But 
in  returning  it  he  has  professed  himself  unable  to  criticise,  and 
very  kindly  says  that  he  likes  it  all,  so  I  leave  it,  being  thereby 
assured  that  it  cannot  be  very  wrong. 

There  is  one  subject  connected  with  shooting,  or  the  ethics 
of  shooting,  about  which  there  is  much  more  to  be  said  than 
ever  has  been  attempted — namely,  that  partridge  preservers 
are  now,  and  will  be  more  in  the  future,  indebted  to  the  fox 
for  their  sport.  This  may  appear  a  wild  paradox,  but  before 
I  am  condemned  for  it  I  would,  in  the  interests  of  the  gun, 
ask   those   who   disagree   to   read   my   chapters   on   partridge 


PREFACE  xiii 

preserving,  where,  if  they  still  disagree,  they  will  find  a  partridge 
success  described  that  will  amply  repay  their  good  nature, 
unless  they  know  a  plan  by  which  season's  partridge  bags  can 
be  doubled,  doubled  again,  and  then  again,  in  three  con- 
secutive years. 

On  the  subject  of  dogs,  I  may  say  that  thirty  to  thirty-five 
years  ago  I  recommended  to  some  American  sportsmen  three 
different  sorts  of  setters.  Either  two  of  them  had  bred  well 
together  in  England.  These  have  been  crossed  together  ever 
since  in  America,  and  no  other  cross  has  been  admitted  to 
the  Stud  Book  devoted  to  them.  They  have  been  a  revela- 
tion in  the  science  of  breeding  domestic  animals,  for,  in  spite 
of  all  the  in-breeding  represented  there,  I  was  enabled  to  select 
a  puppy  in  1904  that  in  Captain  Hey  wood  Lonsdale's  hands 
has  beaten  all  the  English  pointers  and  setters  at  field  trials 
in  1906.  I  have  more  particularly  referred  to  this  in  a  chapter 
on  English  setters,  and  in  another  on  strenuous  dogs  and  sport 
in  America. 

I  have  already  tendered  my  thanks,  but  I  should  like 
publicly  to  repeat  my  indebtedness,  to  those  who  have  lent 
me  the  best  working  dogs  in  England  for  models,  or  have  sent 
me  photographs  of  them  and  other  pictures.  These  include 
Mr.  Eric  Parker,  Editor  of  The  County  Gentleman,  Mr,  W. 
Arkwright,  the  Hon.  Holland  Hibbert,  Mr.  Herbert  Mitchell, 
Mr.  C.  C.  Eversfield,  Mr.  A.  T.  Williams,  Captain  H.  Heywood 
Lonsdale,  Mr.  B.  J.  Warwick,  the  Editor  of  Bailey,  Mr.  Allan 
Brown,  and  the  President  of  the  world's  oldest  established, 
and  National,  Field  Trial  Society,  namely  Col.  C.  J.  Cotes, 
of  Pitchford  Hall,  who  has  sent  me  some  photographs  of 
his,  and  his  late  father's,  Woodcote  pointers  and  retrievers, 
including  an  original  importation  of  1832,  and  founder  of  his 
present  breed  of  the  latter  race,  and  in  doing  this  he  has  been 
kind  enough  to  say  : — 

"  I  have  always  considered  you  to  know  more  about  the 
breaking  and  breeding  of  setters  than  any  man  living,  and 
that  it  was  entirely  through  you  that  the  apex  of  setter  breed- 
ing was  reached  about  twenty-five  years  ago,  and  through  your 


xiv  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

recommendation    I    obtained    the   eight    setters  in    1881    that 
founded  my  present  breed." 

I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  quote  this,  because  my  name  is 
little  known  to  younger  shooters,  although  I  write  many, 
preferably  unsigned,  articles  upon  rural  sports  and  other 
matters. 

G.  T.  T.-B. 


CONTENTS 


Ancient  Actions        ..... 

Ancient  Pistols  to  Automatic  and  Elephant  Rifles 

Ancient  and  Middle  Age  Shooting 

On  the  Choice  of  Shot  Guns 

Single-Trigger  Double  Guns 

Ammunition     .... 

The  Theory  of  Shooting    . 

The  Practice  of  Shooting  . 

Form  in  Game  Shooting — I 

Form  in  Game  Shooting— II 

Crack  Shots— I 

Crack  Shots— II 

Pointers  and  Setters 

The  Pointer   . 

English  Setters 

Strenuous  Dogs  and  Sport  in  America 

The  Irish  Setter 

The  Black-and-Tan  Setter 

Retrievers  and  their  Breaking   . 

The  Labrador  Retriever    . 

Spaniels  .... 

Grouse  that  Lie  and  Grouse  that  Fly 

Red  Grouse     .... 

Methods  of  Shooting  the  Red  Grouse 

The  Latest  Methods  of  Preservation  of  Partridges 

Partridge  Bags  and  Driving         .  .  .  . 


PAGR 

I 

4 

13 

23 
52 
56 
63 
69 
76 
82 
88 
94 

lOI 

126 
139 
151 
160 
168 
176 
191 

195 
204 
214 

235 
246 

259 


XVI 


THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 


Varieties  and  Species  of  the  Pheasant. 

Pheasants        .  .  •  •  • 

Bringing  Pheasants  to  the  Guns. 

Shooting  Wild  Ducks  Artificially  Reared 

Wild  Wild-Duck 

Rabbit  Shooting 

Hares    . 

Snipe 

Woodcocks 

Black  Game    . 

Pigeon  Shooting 

Deer  in  Scotland 

Big  Game 

A  Varied  Bag. 

Diseases  of  Game  Birds 

Index    . 


PAGB 
267 

274 

292 

302 

329 

335 
341 
347 
354 
358 
361 
370 
377 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


H.M.  THE  King  as  a  Boy  .....  Frontispiece 

From  a  photograph  lent  by  Eric  Parker,  Esq. 

Col.  Thornton's  Pluto  (Black)  and  Juno,  by  Gilpin, 
SHOWING  Whole  -  Coloured  Pointers  similar  in 
formation  to  those  of  Sutton  Scarsdale  to-day        .     Facing  page  vi 

From  T)zxaf^'s  Rural  Sports,  1802. 

Warter  Priory.     Lord  Savile  shooting        .  .  .  ,,32 

From  a  photograph  by  Mr.  H.  Lazenbv,  York. 

With  Plenty  of  Freedom  for  Good  Lateral  Swing         .  ,,  63 

Taking  a  Step  Back  with  the  Left  Foot  as  the  Shot 
IS  Fired  saves  the  Balance  when  the  Game  has 
passed  far  Overhead  before  being  shot  at     .  .  ,,  66 

H.R.H.  the  Prince  of  Wales  and  Lord  Farquhar  riding 

TO  THE  Butts  on  the  Bolton  Abbey  Moors,  1906       .  ,,  69 

From  a  photograph  by  Messrs.  Bowdbn  Brothers. 

H.R.H.    THE     Prince    of   Wales    waiting    for    Grouse, 

showing    the    MUCH    MORE    FORWARD    POSITION    OF    THE 

Left  Hand  than  when  Shooting  ...  ,,70 

From  a  photograph  by  Messrs.  Bowden  Brothers. 

H.R.H.  THE  Prince  of  Wales  shooting  Grouse  at 
Bolton  Abbey,  showing  the  very  Forward  Position 
of  the  Left  Hand  .  .  .  .  .  .  ,,72 

From  a  photograph  by  Messrs.  Bowden  BKOTHEhs. 

Mr.  R.  H.  Rimington  Wilson  shooting  Grouse,  show- 
ing THE  Back  Position  of  the  Left  Hand        .  .  ,,  74 

From  a  photograph  by  Messrs.  Bowden  Brothers. 

A^arter  Priory.     Lord  Dalhousie      .  .  .  .  ,,80 

From  a  photograph  by  Mr.  H.  Lazenbv,  York. 


xviii  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

At  Warter  Priory.    Lord  Lovat  in  the  Dales      .  .     Facing  page  84 

From  a  photograph  by  Mr.  H.  Lazenby,  York. 

Mr.   B.  J.  Warwick's  Compton  Pride,  a  Pointer  which 

TWICE  WON  THE  FlELD  TRIAL  CHAMPION   STAKE    .  .  „  lOI 

From  a  photograph  by  the  Author. 

The  Celebrated  Field  Trial  Winning  Setter,  Captain 

H.  Heywood  Lonsdale's  Ightfield  Duffer      .  .  „         loi 

From  a  photograph  by  the  Author. 

Captain    H.    Heywood    Lonsdale's    Ightfield   Rob    Roy 

POINTING,    AND  BACKED  BY  PiTCHFORD   RaNGER      .  .  „  106 

From  a  photograph  by  Messrs.  A.  Brown  &  Co.,  Lanark. 

The  Famous  Field  Trial  Winner  Shamrock   belonging 

TO  Mr.  Arkwright  .  .  .  .  .  .  ,,126 

From  a  photograph  by  the  Owner. 

Solomon's    Seal   and   Sealing   Wax  trying   to    get    up 

Higher  and  feel  the  Scent         .  .  .  .  ,,         126 

From  a  photograph  by  the  Owner,  Mr.  Arkwright. 

Three  of   Mr.  Arkwright's  Whole-Coloured  Pointers  : 

Leader,  Despatch,  and  Largo      .  .  .  .  ,,127 

From  photographs  by  the  Owner, 

The  Spanish  Pointer      .  .  .       *    .  .  .  ,,        128 

From  a  pmnting  by  G.  Stubbs,  engraved  in  Daniel's  Rural  Sports, 
1802. 

Juno,  a  Fawn-Coloured  Pointer,  bred  by  King  George  IV. 
It  is  suggestive  of  the  Greyhound,  and  like  many 
modern  Whole-Coloured  Pointers  .  .  .  ,,        129 

From  an  engraving  by  Richard    Parr,  after  a  picture  by  G.  H. 
Laport,  in  The  Sftoriing  Magazine,  1834. 

An  Early  Nineteenth-Century  Picture  of  the  Woodcote 
Pointers,  the  Property  of  Col.  C.  J.  Cotes.  His 
Field  Trial  Winners  Pitchford  Druce  and  Pitch- 
ford  Duke  are  descended  from  his  Father's 
Woodcote  Pointers  .  .  .  .  .  ,,132 

Col.      C.   J.    Cotes'    Champion    Field    Trial    Pitchford 

Ranger  on  Lord  Home's  Lanark  Moors  .  .  ,,         133 

From  a  photograph  by  the  Author. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xix 

Col.    C.    J.    Cotes'    Champion    Field    Trial    Pitchford 

Ranger  on  the  Ruabon  Hill        ....   Facing  page  133 
From  a  photograph  by  Mr.  Allan  Brown,  Ruabon  Hill. 

Field  Trial  Winner  Pitchford  Beauty  on  the  Ruabon 

Hill ,,        i34 

From  a  photograph  by  Mr.  Allan  Brown,  Ruabon  Hill. 

Field  Trial  Winner  Pitchford  Bang  .  .  .  „        134 

From  a  photograph  by  Miss  Gladstone. 

Captain  Stirling's  Brag  of  Keir  (Field  Trial  Winner)  .  ,,         134 

From  a  photograph  by  the  Author. 

Col.  C.  J.  Cotes'  Field  Winner  Pitchford  Duke  on  the 

Ruabon  Hills  ......  1.         ^35 

From  a  photograph  by  Mr.  Allan  Bkown,  Ruabon  Hill. 

Col.   C.   J.    Cotes'    Field   Winner    Pitchford    Duke   on 

Lord  Home's  Moors  in  Lanark    .  .  .  .  ..        ^35 

From  a  photograph  by  the  Author. 

The  First  of  September,  by  F.  C.  Turner      .  .  .  „         139 

Showing  the  character  of  the  black-and-tan' setter  before  the  blood- 
hound cross. 

The  English  Setter,  by  Reinagle  ....  ,,         144 

From  Scott's  Sportsman's  Repository,  1820. 

With  the  exception  of  an  ill-drawn  hind  leg  and  near  fore  foot  this  is  the 

correct  formation.     The   model  had   the  shoulders,   head,   back, 

and  back  ribs,  rarely  seen  now  except  in  hard-working  dogs. 

Mr.  Herbert  Mitchell's  Lingfield  Beryl,  Winner  of 
Firsts  six  times  in  seven  Field  Trial  Outings  in 
THE  Spring  of  1906  ......  ,,145 

From  photographs  by  the  Owner. 

Capt.    H.   Heywood    Lonsdale's  Field  Trial  :   Ightfield 

Dot  and  Ightfield  Rob  Roy,  with  Scot  their  Breaker  ,,         148 

From  a  photograph  by  Messrs.  A.  Brown,  Lanark. 

Ightfield  Rob  Roy  and    Ightfield    Mac,    belonging    to 

Captain  H.  Heywood  Lonsdale    ....  ,,         149 

The  former  was  victor  on  Lord  Home's  Moors  near  Limr.rk,  in  July 
1906,  over  all  English-bred  pointers  and  setters.  The  Salter  was 
winner  of  the  Puppy  Stakes  at  the  same  time. 

From  a  photograph  by  the  Author. 


XX  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

Mr.  John  Cotes'  Imported  Labrador,  Tip,  from  an  Old 

Picture  at  Woodcote         .....    Facing  page  176 

The  dog  was  whelped  in  1832,  and  presented  by  Mr.  Portman  to  his 
owner.  From  this  dog  is  descended  the  field  trial  winner,  Col. 
C.  J.  Cotes'  Pitchford  Marshal,  and  his  Monk,  an  intermediate 
generation.  This  dog  is  more  like  the  dogs  at  Netherby  45  years 
ago  than  is  the  present  race  of  Labradors. 

From  a  photograph  lent  by  the  Owner  of  the  picture. 

Col.  C.  J.  Cotes'  Pitchford  Marshal,  several  times  a 

Field  Trial  Winner  .  .  .  .  .  ,.         i77 

From  a  photograph  lent  by  the  Owner. 

Col.  C.  J.  Cotes'  Monk,  an  Intermediate  Link  between 
the  Imported  Dog  Tip,  of  1832,  and  Marshal,  now 
IN  full  vigour.     Monk  is  said  to  have  been  very 

FAST ,,177 

From  a  picture  lent  by  the  Owner. 

Mr.  a.  T.  Williams  and  his  celebrated  Liver-Coloured 

Field  Trial  Retriever  Don  of  Gerwn  .  .  .  ,,180 

From  a  photograph  presented  by  Col.  J.  C.  Cotes. 

Mr.  a.  T.  Williams'  Don  of  Gerwn  (Liver-Coloured)     .  ,,        i8i 

Mr.  Lewis  Wigan's  Sweep  of  Glendaruel  (Black)  .  ,,         181 

The  Hon.   A.   Holland  Hibbert's  Kennel  of  Labrador 

Retrievers,  1901       ......  ,,191 

From  a  photograph  presented  by  the  Owner. 

The   Hon.    A.    Holland    Hibbert's    Labrador    Munden 

Single.  .......  ,,192 

From  a  photograph  presented  by  the  Owner. 

The  Hon.  A.  Holland  Hibbert's  Munden  Sovereign       .  „        192 

From  a  photograph  presented  by  the  Owner. 


Col.    C.    J.    Cotes   and    Pitchford    Marshal,    with    his 
Breaker  Harry  Downes     ..... 

From  a  photograph  presented  by  the  Owner. 


193 


The  Hon.  A.  Holland  Hibeert  and  Munden  Single        .  ,,         19^ 

From  a  photograph  presented  by  the  Owner. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xxi 

Mr.  Eversfield's  Field  Trial  Winning  English  Springer 
Spaniels  of  a  Liver  -  and  -  White  Breed  kept  for 
WORK  alone  in  the  Family  of  the  Bougheys  of 
Aqualate  for  a  Hundred  Years  .  .  .    Facing  page  198 

Red-and-White    Field    Trial    Welsh  Springer  Spaniels 

belonging  to  Mr.  A.  T.  Williams  .  .  .  ,,         199 

From  a  photograph  by  Messrs.  Bowden  Brothers. 

Field  Trial  English  Springer  Spaniels  of  the  Liver- 
and- White  (Aqualate)  Breed  belonging  to  Mr. 
C  C.  Eversfield      .  .  .  .  .  .  ».         199 

From  a  photograph  by  Messrs.  Bowden  Brothers. 

Pheasants  at  Warter  Priory.     Lord  Londesborough   at 

High  Cliff    .  .  .  .  .  .  .  ,,         274 

From  a  photograph  by  Mr.  H.  Lazenby,  York. 

A    Highland  Deer    Head  of  unusually  Heavy  Beam — 

A  Thirteen  Pointer  .  .  .  .  .  ,,        354 

From  a  photograph  by  Mrs.  Smithson. 

A   Fine  Wildly    Typical   Nine    Point   Highland   Head 

of  38-lNCH  Span        .  .  .  .  .  .  ,,        354 

From  a  photograph  by  Mrs.  Smithson. 

A  Typical  Highland  Red  Deer  Imperial  Head,  Thirteen 

Points.  .......  ,■         355 

From  a  photograph  by  Mrs.  Smithson. 

A  Typical  New  Zealand  Royal  Head  .  .  .  ,,         355 

By  permission  of  the  Editor  of  County  Gentleman. 

Typical  Stag  of  Ten  Points,  shot  in  Kashmir  by    Col. 

Smithson         .......  m         35^ 

From  a  photograph  by  Col.  Smithson. 

Stag   of   Thirteen    Points,    shot    in    Kashmir    by    Mrs, 

Smithson        .......  ,,         35^ 

From  a  photograph  by  Mrs.  Smithson. 


THE    COMPLETE    SHOT 


ANCIENT  ACTIONS 

BY  far  the  greatest  inventions  in  gunnery  have  been  made 
by  chemists.  The  cleverness  and  boldness  of  many 
wonderful  inventions  for  loading  at  the  breech  all  aimed  at  the 
well-nigh  impossible.  The  powder  was  always  ignited  from 
without,  and  had  to  be  either  partly  or  quite  loose  in  order 
to  facilitate  ignition  by  means  of  external  fire.  That  is  what 
beat  the  inventors  of  five  centuries,  who  were  for  ever  trying  to 
find  a  breech-loader,  a  revolver,  or  a  magazine  weapon.  In 
default  of  these  working  satisfactorily,  they  tried  weapons 
with  seven  barrels,  and  others  with  fewer.  But  it  was  all  to 
little  purpose ;  the  detonator  had  not  been  discovered  by  the 
Rev.  A.  J.  Forsyth,  and  the  chemist  to  the  French  army  of 
Louis  XV.  had  not  then  invented  fulminate  of  mercury.  Con- 
sequently a  closed-up  cartridge  containing  its  own  means  of 
ignition  was  impossible,  for  although  detonating  substances 
were  known  years  before,  they  were  such  as  did  not  always  wait  to 
be  detonated — in  other  words,  they  were  not  stable.  They  were 
too  dangerous  for  use,  but  nevertheless  the  attempts  made  at 
breech-loaders,  and  especially  at  magazines,  were  more  than 
equally  dangerous.  One  weapon  had  eight  touch-holes  in  eight 
positions  in  the  barrel,  which  was  eight  times  charged,  one  load 
and  charge  upon  top  of  the  next.  That  nearest  the  muzzle  was 
fired  first  (if  the  weapon  was  ever  fired  at  all),  and  so  on,  down 
to  that  nearest  the  breech.  What  prevented  the  first  igniting 
the  rest,  and  sending  all  off  together  with  a  burst  weapon,  is 
not  known.  If  they  did  not  go  off  all  together,  one  would 
I 


2  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

suppose  the  firing  of  several  loads  in  succession  would  give  to 
those  loads  in  the  breech  the  best  ramming  ever  known.  But 
for  this  ramming  to  excess  this  invention  went  very  near  to  a 
more  perfect  success  than  any  modern  magazine  weapon.  The 
trouble  with  all  the  latter  is  what  to  do  with  the  empty  cartridge- 
case.  But  this  old  weapon  had  no  cartridge-case.  Its  ignition 
was  from  the  outside,  and  was  always  ready.  It  is  true  that  the 
difference  of  length  of  movement  of  shot  within  the  barrel  would 
make  some  difference  to  the  velocity  of  each  shot,  but  not  more 
than  would  be  equalised  by  a  very  small  extra  dose  of  powder 
for  those  charges  nearest  the  muzzle. 

Another  form  of  repeater  was  a  breech-loader  which  carried 
several  charges  of  powder  in  the  stock,  which,  in  turn,  were 
shaken  into  a  revolving  chamber,  in  front  of  which,  before  it  was 
in  place  for  firing,  the  bullet  was  inserted  for  each  load,  as  its 
turn  came  round.  Other  repeaters  were  simple  revolvers,  much 
like  the  weapon  in  use  now,  but  of  course  used  without  cartridges 
of  self-contained  ignition  material. 

Indeed,  the  ingenuity  expended  on  breech-loading  before  the 
advent  of  detonating  powder  for  ignition  was  really  greater  than 
the  more  modern  efforts  to  do  a  much  more  simple  thing.  At 
the  same  time,  had  they  succeeded,  as  they  very  nearly  did,  by 
doing  without  a  removable  cartridge-case,  they  would  have 
accomplished  that  which  is  still  required  for  the  perfect  working 
of  magazine  and  automatic  weapons. 

The  most  elaborate  of  all  the  old  repeaters  was  a  revolving 
double-chambered  German  weapon.  It  had  ten  chambers,  and 
each  of  these  carried  two  charges,  with  a  touch-hole  for  each. 
The  majority  of  the  old  breech-loaders  had  movable  blocks  on 
the  principle  of  the  Martini,  but  instead  of  the  hinged  blocks 
being  solid,  as  in  that  weapon,  they  were  mostly  hollowed  out 
to  take  the  charge  and  the  bullet ;  sometimes  held  in  a  cartridge, 
but  generally  with  the  powder  loose,  and  always  loose  when  in 
the  chamber,  in  order  that  there  should  be  free  communication 
with  the  touch-hole. 

Sometimes  the  barrel  was  hinged  in  order  to  drop  down  at 
right  angles  with  the  stock,  and  this  was  really  the  forerunner 


ANCIENT  ACTIONS  3 

of  our  drop-down  giins  of  to-day,  which  are  consequently  some 
centuries  old  in  principle,  and  had  it  not  been  for  the  absence 
of  detonators  there  would  have  been  nothing  left  for  the  nine- 
teenth century  to  invent. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  Prussians  were  first  to  take  up  the 
principle  of  the  breech-loader  for  war,  but  that  refers  only  to 
the  detonated  modern  breech-loader.  Some  of  the  soldiers  in 
the  American  War  of  Independence  were  armed  with  the 
breech-loader  already  mentioned,  in  which  the  trigger  guard 
unscrewed  the  opening  into  the  breech ;  but  although  this 
invention  was  possibly  the  soundest  in  joining  of  all  the  old 
ones,  it  was  slow,  and  probably  was  not  much  used  for  that 
reason. 

The  Venetians  had  ships  armed  with  cannon  as  early  as 
1380  A.D.,  and  in  Henry  VIII.'s  reign  the  wrecked  Mary  Rose 
carried  breech-\odidQrs,  designed  on  a  principle  which  may 
possibly  have  suggested  the  wire  guns  of  the  present.  The 
tube  of  iron  or  brass  (for  both  were  used)  was  surmounted  by 
rings  of  iron  which  had  evidently  been  slipped  over  the  tube 
and  hammered  on  while  red-hot.  These  then  contracted  upon 
cooling,  and  pinched  the  bore  smaller,  so  that,  intentionally  or 
not,  the  bore  was  made  to  expand  to  its  original  size  upon  an 
explosion  occurring  before  any  stress  was  put  on  the  metal  of 
the  internal  surface  by  the  powder-gas.  That  is  to  say,  all  the 
first  part  of  the  strain  went  to  expand  the  rings  on  the  outside 
of  the  gun  before  the  inside  had  reassumed  its  natural  dimen- 
sions ;  or,  in  other  words,  the  tension  between  the  external  big 
circumference  and  the  internal  small  one  was  equalised,  just 
on  the  same  principle  as  it  is  in  the  latest  big  guns.  This  is 
known,  because  some  of  the  Mary  Roses  big  guns  were  got  up 
from  the  sea  about  half  a  century  ago.  She  was  over-weighted, 
and  it  is  quite  probable  that  her  loss  had  a  good  deal  to  do  with 
teaching  the  nation  that  before  everything  a  warship  must  be 
handy,  so  that,  when  the  Spaniards  sent  their  great  ships  to 
fight  Elizabeth,  her  smaller  craft,  and  Britain's  uncertain  weather, 
between  them  sank  or  squandered  the  whole  Spanish  fleet. 


ANCIENT  PISTOLS  TO  AUTOMATIC  AND 
ELEPHANT  RIFLES 

ITALY  has  the  credit  of  the  invention  of  the  pistol,  which 
came  into  being  soon  after  the  designing  of  the  wheel- 
lock  and  the  rifling  of  barrels.  Caminelleo  Vitelli  of  Pistoia 
made  the  first  about  1540.  It  was  in  the  manufacture  of 
these  small  weapons  that  gun-makers  from  this  date  to  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  excelled.  The  workman- 
ship was  generally  of  a  high  order,  and  the  ornamentation, 
especially  of  some  of  the  German  specimens,  was  extremely 
artistic. 

Moreover,  during  the  flint  and  steel  age,  some  double- 
barrelled  pistols  were  built  with  two  locks  and  only  one  trigger. 
Although  these  weapons  worked  quite  perfectly,  it  must  not 
be  assumed  that  the  makers  of  these  pistols  could  have  made 
a  double  shoulder  gun  to  work  satisfactorily  with  but  one  trigger. 
That  difficulty  was  overcome  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century  ; 
but  even  then  the  clever  designers  had  not  discovered  exactly 
what  the  former  trouble  was,  and  it  was  freely  stated  in  a  way 
that  is  now  known  to  have  been  wrong.  Indeed,  the  author  was 
the  first  to  discover  the  real  reason  for  the  involuntary  second 
pull  and  double  discharge.  As  this  phenomenon  did  not  occur  in 
pistols,  but  did  so  in  shoulder  weapons,  it  apparently  seemed  easy 
to  trace  the  cause.  Very  early  in  the  nineteenth  century,  dozens, 
and  since  then  hundreds,  of  designers  and  patentees  have  set 
out  with  the  announcement  that  they  had  discovered  the  true 
cause  of  the  trouble,  and  met  it  with  a  patent.  As  the  latter 
were   always   badly  constructed,  it  may  be  assumed  that  the 

patentees  were  wrong  in  their  diagnosis.     As  a  matter  of  fact, 

4 


ANCIENT  PISTOLS  TO  AUTOMATIC  RIFLES        5 

they  were,  as  was  proved  when  the  author  published  the  true 
cause  of  involuntary  pull  in  The  County  Gentleman,  and  for  a 
time  had  to  meet  alone  the  hostile  criticism  of  most  of  the  gun 
trade,  the  members  of  which  now  admit  the  truth  of  those  criticised 
statements.  Although  the  true  reason  must  be  dealt  with  under 
the  heading  of  single-trigger  guns  and  rifles,  it  may  be  briefly 
stated  that  the  success  of  the  single-trigger  double-barrelled 
pistol  was  not  because  of  its  more  feeble  explosion,  as  was 
supposed,  but  because  the  recoil  continues  long  enough  to  allow 
the  will  of  the  shooter  to  gain  command  of  his  muscular  finger 
action,  before  the  check  to  recoil  occurs.  Whereas,  with  the 
shoulder  gun,  the  finger  which  has  let  off  the  first  lock  flies  back 
as  the  trigger  is  carried  from  it  by  recoil,  and  this  sustained 
muscular  action  cannot  be  stopped  by  the  will  as  quickly  as  the 
gun  recoil  is  lessened  by  the  shoulder.  Consequently,  we 
involuntarily  give  a  second  pressure  to  the  trigger,  without 
knowing  that  we  have  ceased  giving  a  first.  This  want  of  per- 
ception of  what  we  ourselves  do  is  caused  partly  by  quickness 
of  the  recoil,  and  partly  because  the  recoil  relieves  the  pressure, 
and  our  wills  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  matter.  Or,  to 
be  more  correct,  we  pull  off  the  trigger  once  intentionally,  but 
are  unable  to  cease  pulling  when  the  trigger  has  given  way. 
Consequently  we  unconsciously  follow  up  the  trigger  as  it  jumps 
back  in  recoil,  catch  up  with  it,  and  involuntarily  pull  it  again 
without  knowing  that  we  have  let  go,  or  had  the  trigger 
momentarily  snatched  from  us. 

It  is  clear  that  the  understanding  of  this  principle  was 
as  necessary  to  designers  of  automatic  repeaters  as  it  was 
to  makers  of  double-barrelled  shot  guns,  and  yet  the  Mauser 
repeating  automatic  pistol  and  the  Webley  Fosbery  automatic 
revolver  were  invented,  with  some  others,  before  the  reason 
of  the  involuntary  pull  had  been  discovered  ;  and  more  than 
that,  the  author  had  tested  the  Mauser  with  its  shoulder 
stock  satisfactorily.  But  no  satisfactory  automatic  rifle  had 
been  then  invented,  and  the  trouble  with  them  was  to  prevent 
the  sending  forth  of  a  stream  of  bullets  when  only  one  shot 
was  wanted.     The  greater  force  being  dealt  with,  had  brought 


6  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

into  action  the  difficulty  of  the  involuntary  pull.  This  has 
now  been  overcome ;  but  still  there  are  other  difficulties 
which  have  been  treated  less  satisfactorily,  and  those  who 
are  ambitious  to  use  automatic  weapons  will  be  wise  to  confine 
that  ambition  to  the  many  pistols  and  the  revolver  in  the 
market.  Repeating  shot  guns  are  lumbering  tools,  from  which 
disqualification  the  automatic  weapons  are  little  likely  to  be 
free.  Still,  it  is  quite  possible  that  a  gunner  could  shoot  more 
birds  out  of  a  single  covey  with  one  automatic  gun  than  with 
two  double  guns.  But  what  of  it  ?  The  aim  of  the  gunner  is 
not  merely  to  shoot  at  one  covey,  but  to  keep  on  shooting 
fast  for  perhaps  half  an  hour.  The  thing  that  stops  very  fast 
shooting  is  not  loading  and  changing  guns,  but  heat  of  barrels, 
and  consequently  to  make  these  single  barrels  equal  to  the 
doubles  there  must  be  four  of  them  in  place  of  two  doubles, 
and  six  of  them  in  place  of  three  ejectors.  The  time  has  not 
yet  come  when  anybody  wants  to  employ  three  loaders  to 
carry  six  guns. 

There  is  some  reason  to  prefer  the  automatic  principle 
for  pistols  and  revolvers,  because  the  user's  life  may  often 
depend  upon  the  quickness  of  his  shots  at  an  enemy,  but 
there  is  less  reason  for  their  use  in  military  rifles,  and  actual 
disadvantage  for  sporting  rifles  and  shot  guns.  The  author  has 
shot  the  Mauser,  the  Colt,  and  the  Fosbery  with  satisfaction  to 
himself.  The  latest  invention  is  a  sliding  automatic  pistol  of  .32 
gauge  invented  by  Messrs.  Webley.  But  no  automatic  pistol 
can  be  as  reliable  as  the  service  revolver,  or  as  the  Fosbery, 
since  a  sticking  cartridge  or  a  misfire  disables  any  of  them. 

It  is  often  said  that  these  spring  actuated  actions,  on  which  the 
barrel  slides  back,  give  less  recoil  than  others,  but  in  practice 
this  is  not  so,  and  in  science  it  could  not  be  so,  although  it  is 
stated  in  the  last  Government  text-book  that  they  reduce  recoil. 

The  principles  on  which  it  is  sought  to  make  automatic 
rifles  are  as  follows : — 

1.  To  actuate  an  ejector,  magazine  loading,  and  closing  action 
by  means  of  gas  obtained  from  a  hole  in  the  barrel. 

2,  To   actuate   the   same   movements   by   means    of  recoil 


ANCIENT  PISTOLS  TO  AUTOMATIC  RIFLES        7 

and  rebound  of  the  sliding  barrel  on  to  an  independent  stock 
grooved  to  carry  the  barrel,  and  fitted  with  a  spring. 

3.  To  actuate  the  same  movements  by  means  of  allowing 
the  whole  weapon  to  recoil  on  to  a  false  heel  plate  spring, 
and  rebound  from  it. 

4.  By  allowing  a  short  sliding  recoil  of  the  barrel  to 
make  the  bolting  action  slide  farther  back  on  to  the  stock 
and  a  spring,  and  to  rebound  from  them. 

Several  of  these  principles  have  been  employed  in  conjunction 
in  this  or  other  countries.  The  recoil  is  made  to  compress  a 
spring,  which  by  re-expansion  completes  the  work  of  closing 
up  the  rifle,  when  it  does  not  stick  and  fail,  as  in  all  specimens 
of  automatic  rifles  has  occurred  at  intervals. 

All  nations  are  now  armed  with  magazine  repeating  rifles, 
but  none  have  yet  adopted  automatic  loading  for  rifles.  The 
choice  between  the  various  magazine  mechanisms  is  a  mere 
matter  of  taste,  but  the  shortening  of  the  British  national 
arm  to  25  inches  seems  to  have  been  done  without  regard 
to  the  fact  that  no  rifle  of  25  inches  can  compete  in  accuracy 
with  an  equally  well-made  and  an  equally  well-loaded  weapon 
of  30  inches,  although  it  may  compete  favourably  with  the 
discarded  Mark  II.  Lee-Enfield,  which  was  improperly  made 
and  also  badly  loaded.  Unfortunately,  our  prospective  enemies 
are  not  embracing  the  faults  of  the  Mark  II.,  but  are  adhering 
to  a  rifle  instead  of  a  carbine.  That  is  the  correct  term  to 
employ  to  describe  the  new  weapon. 

The  carbine  of  any  period  has  generally  been  equal  to 
the  rifle  of  the  preceding  decade,  but  it  has  never  yet  been 
equal  to  the  rifle  of  its  own  decade,  and  never  will  be. 

Miniature  rifles  for  amateur  soldiers  in  the  making  are 
very  numerous.  The  best  cheap  one  the  author  has  handled 
is  the  rifle  with  which  Mr.  W.  W.  Greener  won  the  Navy  and 
Army  competition,  which  was  managed  by  the  author.  What 
is  here  meant  by  a  low  price  is  £2^  2s.,  and  under.  The  rifle 
was  used  with  peep  sights.  But  better  advice  than  naming 
any  maker  is  this.  All  the  makers  profess  to  put  a  group  of 
seven  shots  on  to  a  postage  stamp   at    50   yards.     They   all 


8  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

employ  expert  shooters  who  can  do  this  if  it  is  to  be  done. 
Buy  the  rifle  with  which  they  do  it  in  your  presence,  and  it 
will  then  be  your  own  fault  if  you  cannot  perform  likewise. 
This  test  of  a  single  rifle  is  quite  satisfactory;  but  a  double 
rifle  has  to  be  dealt  with  differently,  as  is  explained  in 
another  chapter.  Of  course,  it  is  a  mistake  to  shoot  a  rifle 
from  any  sort  of  fixed  rest ;  the  weapon,  when  loose  in  the 
hands,  bends  its  barrel,  or  flips,  jumps,  and  also  recoils,  and 
it  is  good  or  bad  according  as  it  does  accurate  work  under 
the  action  of  all  these  influences.  A  rest  to  steady  the  arms 
is  quite  permissible,  but  a  vice  to  hold  the  rifle  is  not. 

Once  Mr.  Purdey  expressed  the  opinion  that  he  could  learn 
as  much  from  his  customers  as  they  could  from  him.  The 
author  thought  this  so  shrewd  a  remark,  that,  having  a  know- 
ledge of  the  many  good  sportsmen  and  big-game  hunters  who 
employ  the  weapons  of  the  Messrs.  Holland  &  Holland,  Messrs. 
John  Rigby,  and  Messrs.  Westley  Richards,  he  wrote  to  each  of 
them  to  ask  their  opinions  of  the  best  bore  and  weight  of  rifle, 
sort  and  weight  of  powder,  sort  and  weight  of  bullet,  and  velocity 
of  bullet  to  be  expected,  for  each  of  the  following  animals,  as  if 
each  were  the  only  object  to  be  pursued  by  the  sportsman. 
He  stated  at  the  same  time,  that  compromise  to  meet  the  re- 
quirements of  several,  or  many,  of  these  animals  he  regarded 
as  a  personal  and  individual  matter  to  the  sportsman.  He 
pointed  out  also  that  in  asking  for  opinions  he  knew  that  he 
was  asking  for  a  consensus  of  opinion  of  the  past  customers 
of  the  firms  in  question.  It  is  interesting  to  compare  the 
views  of  each  maker  as  to  the  best  rifle  to  use  for  everything, 
from  a  rook  and  rabbit,  to  an  African  elephant  charging  down 
on  the  gunner,  and  requiring  the  frontal  shot.  What  is  intended 
is  the  very  best  weapon  to  have  in  hand  at  the  moment,  if  there 
were  nothing  else  to  be  considered.  Mr.  Holland's  reply  is  as 
follows : — 

"  98  New  Bond  Street,  London,  VV., 
"  October  nth,  1906 

"  Dear  Mr.  Teasdale-Buckell, — It  is  impossible  in  the 
space  of  a  short  paragraph  to  go  thoroughly  into  the  question 


ANCIENT  PISTOLS  TO  AUTOMATIC  RIFLES        9 

of  the  best  bore,  weight  of  rifle,  etc.  etc.,  best  suited  to  each 
kind  of  game.  A  good  deal  must  depend  upon  the  conditions 
under  which  the  rifle  is  used,  the  capabilities  of  the  sportsman, 
etc.,  but  taken  generally  the  rifles  mentioned  below  are  those 
we  have  found  to  give  the  best  all-round  results,  and  our  opinion 
is  formed  upon  the  reports  received  from  a  large  number  of 
sportsmen,  including  many  of  the  best  known  and  most  ex- 
perienced game  hunters. 

"Rooks. — ,220  or  .250  bore. 

*^  Rabbits. — .250  bore  ;  weight  about  5  to  6  lbs. 

"Red  Deer,  Scotch. — (i)  .375  bore  double-barrelled;  weight 
9^  lbs.  (2)  .375  bore  sporting  magazine  rifle,  Mannlicher- 
Schonauer  for  choice ;  weight  7^  lbs.  (3)  .375  bore  single- 
drop  block  ;  weight  7^  lbs. ;  velocity  about  2000  ft. ;  charge 
40-43  grains  of  cordite  or  its  equivalent ;  270  grains  bullet, 
either  soft-nosed  solid  or  hollow  point. 

"  Chamois. — Same  as  for  Red  Deer,  also  .256  Mannlicher. 

"African  Antelopes. — .375  bore  as  above. 

"Indian  Deer. — .375  bore  as  above. 

"  Moose,  Wapiti^  and  big  'ij^-^o  stone  Deer  of  Hungary, etc. — .450 
bore  double-barrelled  rifle;  weight  1O2  lbs.;  charge  70  grains  of 
cordite  powder  or  its  equivalent ;  bullet  soft-nosed  solid  370  or 
420  grains ;  velocity  dbout  2000  ft. 

"Lions. — (i)  12  bore  Magnum  Paradox;  weight  8— 8^  lbs.; 
charge  of  smokeless  powder  equivalent  to  4I  drams  of  black 
powder;  735  grains  hollow-point  bullet;  velocity  1 250-1 300  ft. 
(2)  .450  cordite  rifle  same  as  for  Moose,  etc. 

"  Tigers, from  houdah  or  machan. — 12  bore  Paradox;  weight 
about  'j\  lbs. ;  charge  equivalent  to  3|-  drams  of  black  powder  ; 
735  grains  bullet ;  velocity  about  11 00  ft. 

"Lions  and  Tigers,  followed  up  on  foot. — 12  bore  Magnum 
Paradox. 

"Elephant,  Buffalo,  etc.,  in  thick  jungle. — 10  bore  Paradox; 
weight  13  lbs.;  nitro  powder  charge  equivalent  to  8  drams  of 
black  powder,  in  solid  drawn  brass  case,  solid  nickel-covered 
bullet  950  grains. 

"  Elephant,  Buffalo,  in  more  open  country. — .450  cordite  rifle 
same  as  above;  charge  70  grains  cordite  or  its  equivalent; 
nickel-covered  solid  bullet  480  grains." 

Mr.  Rigby  replies  as  follows  : — 

"Rooks. — .250  bore,  shooting  usual  Eley  or  Kynoch  cartridge. 
"  Rabbits. — .300 bore,  shooting  usual  Eley  or  Kynoch  cartridge. 


10  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

'^RedDeer,  Scotch. — Double-barrel  hammerless  .303  ;  shooting 
cordite  and  split-nose  bullets  ;  weight  of  rifle  about  8  lbs. 

"  Chamois. — Mauser-Rigby  magazine  rifle  with  telescope  sight; 
weight  of  rifle  7^  lbs. ;  Mauser  7  mm.  cartridges  with  split  bullets. 

"  African  A  ntelopes,  Indian  Deer,  Ibex,  and  Tibet  Wild  Sheep, 
Lions  and  Tigers. — .350  bore  Rigby  double  barrel ;  weight  g\  lbs. ; 
cordite  cartridge  giving  2150  f.s.  m.v.  ;  bullet  310  grains,  split 
and  soft  nose,  or  Mauser-Rigby  magazine  shooting  same 
ammunition  ;  a  grand  rifle. 

^^  Eastern  ElepJiants,  Eastern  Buffalo,  African  Buffalo,  African 
Elephants. — .450  high  velocity  cordite  double  barrel ;  weight 
n  lbs.  ;  bullet  480  grains  m.v.  2150  f.s." 

Mr.  Leslie  B.  Taylor  replies  for  Messrs.  Westley  Richards 
thus : — 

"BOURNBROOK,  BIRMINGHAM 
"  October  I'^th,  1906 

"  Dear  Mr.  Buckell, — I  regret  that  I  could  not  give  you 
the  information  earlier,  being  up  to  my  eyes  in  work.  I  have 
filled  in  the  sizes  I  think  suitable  for  each  kind  of  game  gathered 
from  our  clients'  own  opinions  formed  from  experience.  You 
will  notice  that  in  some  cases  I  have  mentioned  the  .450  high 
velocity  rifle.  As  regards  India,  this  rifle  will  now  be  unavail- 
able ;  a  recent  alteration  of  the  shooting  regulations  excludes 
the  .450  bore,  which  like  the  .303  cannot  be  imported  into  that 
country  for  private  use. 

"The  new  accelerated  express  rifle  .375/.303  will  no  doubt, 
on  account  of  its  being  associated  in  the  minds  of  the  officials 
with  the  actual  .303  bore,  come  under  the  same  ban.  But  this 
is  a  powerful  rifle,  as  you  will  gather  from  the  enclosed  particulars, 
and  when  used  with  the  capped  bullet  becomes  a  most  formid- 
able weapon,  and  has  been  satisfactorily  employed  against  Tiger. 

"  I  have  just  introduced  a  new  extension  of  the  accelerated 
express  system  .318  bore,  2500  feet  velocity,  250  grains  bullet, 
muzzle  energy  3466  ft.  lbs.,  and  this  ranks  only  second  to  the 
.400  bore  rifle.  It  is  remarkably  accurate,  and  as  it  is  used  in 
conjunction  with  the  copper-capped  expanding  bullet,  it  will 
take  the  place  of  the  .450  bore  now  prohibited. 

"  I  merely  give  you  these  particulars,  as  you  will  see  that 
very  shortly,  if  the  Indian  regulations  continue  in  force,  as  I 
have  no  doubt  they  will,  the  other  information  might  be  con- 
sidered out  of  date. — Yours  very  truly, 

"Leslie  B.  Taylor 


ANCIENT  PISTOLS  TO  AUTOMATIC  RIFLES       1 1 

^^  Rooks. — .250 ;  some  prefer  .297/,23o,  a  similar  one. 

"  Rabbits. — .250  or  .300 ;  latter  preferred  if  country  will  permit. 

'^  Red  Deer,  Scotch. — Many  sizes  are  used,  from  .256  Mann- 
licher ;  the  .360  high  velocity  is  effective.  For  those  who 
prefer  a  very  flat  trajectory  superior  to  the  Mannlicher,  the 
new  accelerated  h.v.  .375/.303  is  taken. 

"  Chamois. — Nothing  less  than  .360 ;  the  .375  with  copper- 
capped  bullet  is  very  effective,  although  the  .256  is  often  used  : 
it  is  found  not  to  kill  the  beast. 

"  African  Antelopes. — .360  and  nickel-capped  bullet,  a.375/.303 
accelerated  express ;  many  sportsmen  are  using  the  .303  with 
nickel-capped  bullet. 

^^  Indian  Deer,  Ibex,  Tibet  Wild  Sheep. — .256  Mannlicher, 
Mauser  .275,  also  .360  and  .375  bore  with  capped  bullet ;  some 
use  ball  and  shot  guns  12  bore. 

"  Lions  and  Tigers. — .360  to  .450  h.v.  express ;  the  new 
.375/.303  has  proved  successful  at  Tigers  with  the  capped  bullet. 

"  Eastern  Elepha7its. — The  best  weapon  I  know,  of  which  I 
have  the  most  excellent  accounts,  is  the  .577  h.v.  rifle,  100  grs. 
cordite  and  750  grs.  solid  and  capped  bullet. 

^^  Eastern  Buffalo. — .360,  .400,  and  .450  h.v.  express. 

"African  Buffalo. — .450  h.v.  express  and  .577  h.v.  express. 

"African  Elephants. — The  .577  .100/.710  ;  some  use  the  .450, 
but  the  former  is  a  most  deadly  weapon. 

"  I  have  just  received  information  from  an  African  sportsman 
that  he  has  shot  an  African  buffalo  with  a  Westley  Richards  12 
explora,  the  horn  measurements  of  which  are  strikingly  fine, 
and  promise  to  be  a  record." 

In    reply    to    further    questions,    Mr.    Holland    writes    as 

follows : — 

"October  13///,  1906 

"  Dear  Mr.  Teasdale-Buckell, — I  don't  think  it  necessary 
to  distinguish  between  African  and  Indian  elephants.  No  doubt 
the  former  is  more  difficult  to  kill  with  the  frontal  shot,  but 
you  must  try  and  get  another  shot ;  then,  again,  the  480  grain 
(450)  bullet  gives  enormous  penetration,  and  probably  would 
penetrate  the  head  of  an  African  elephant  as  well  as  any 
bullet  you  could  use.  For  a  charging  elephant,  there^  is 
nothing  like  the  big  bore  for  stopping,  or  at  any  rate  turning 
the  animal.  Velocity  :  it  is  a  curious  thing  that  we  appear  to 
get  practically  the  same  elevation  with  the  375  (450)  bullet  as 
the  480  gr.  one,  and  practically  the  same  velocity.     We  attri- 


12  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

bute  this  to  the  extra  weight  of  the  480  gr.  offering  more 
resistance  to  the  powder,  and  thereby  setting  up  higher  pressure, 
greater  heat,  though  practically  making  the  powder  do  more 
work.  Henry  Holland" 

It  may  be  said  that  at  this  moment  velocities  are  undergoing 
radical  change,  due  to  the  improved  powder  Axite,  and  that  one 
maker  offers  rifles  giving  to  the  303  bullet  a  muzzle  velocity  of 
2700  fs.  This  means  a  greater  stride  than  that  from  the 
express  to  the  high  velocity  rifles,  and  if  it  is  accurate,  then 
trajectories  have  been  very  much  reduced. 

In  reply  to  a  still  further  question,  the  following  is  a  reply 

that  explains  itself: — 

''October  i^th,  1906 

"Dear  Mr.  Teasdale-Buckell, — I  have  your  letter  of  the 
1 2th  inst.  With  regard  to  the  .^ooj  .450, 1  think  I  said  2000  ft. ; 
it  should  have  been  about  2100  ft.  As  a  curious  confirmation 
of  the  above,  I  may  point  out  that  in  Kynoch's  book  on  the 
ballistics  of  various  rifles,  it  gives  2150  ft.  as  the  muzzle  velocity 
of  a  .450  bore  rifle  with  70  grains  cordite  and  480  grains  bullet, 
whereas  with  70  grains  powder  and  420  grains  bullet  it  gives 
the  muzzle  velocity  as  2125  ft. 

"The  muzzle  velocity  of  a  950  grains  bullet  from  a  10  bore 
Paradox,  nitro  powder,  is  1500  ft.  The  bullet  is  made  either  of 
solid  hardened  lead  or  steel  cored  ;  see  the  enclosed  illustrations 
of  the  latter.  With  regard  to  the  rook  and  rabbit  rifles,  the  .220 
shoots  3  grains  powder  and  30  grains  bullet,  and  the  .250 
7  grains  powder  and  56  grains  bullet.  Solid  bullets  for  rooks, 
and  hollow-point  bullets  for  rabbits. — Yours  faithfully, 

"H.  W.  Holland" 


ANCIENT  AND  MIDDLE  AGE 
SHOOTING 

IT  is  difficult  to  know  where  to  start  an  account  of  the  early 
history  of  shooting.  The  long-bow  was  used  in  deer 
shooting,  as  also  was  the  cross-bow,  and  if  we  may  believe  the 
early  artists — and  I  do  not  see  why  we  should — deer  running 
before  hounds  and  horses  were  shot  from  the  saddle  with 
the  cross-bow,  and  the  arrow  went  in  behind  the  neck  and  out 
at  the  throat.  The  artists  of  old  were  obviously  as  imaginative 
as  Royal  Academicians  when  it  came  to  sport.  For  instance, 
nearly  every  picture  of  a  woodcock  or  snipe  on  the  wing,  in- 
cluding one  of  J.  W.  M.  Turner's,  puts  the  beak  of  the  bird 
sticking  out  in  front,  on  the  principle  of  "  follow  your  nose " ; 
but  every  woodcock  and  snipe  treats  even  Turner  with  contempt, 
and  hangs  its  beak  in  spite  of  the  greatest  master  of  English 
landscape.  Mr.  Thorburn  makes  no  such  mistake,  but  even  he 
has  made  a  couple  of  cock  partridges  court  one  another ;  and  it 
is  really  very  difficult  to  believe  in  the  accuracy  of  artists  such 
as  the  delineators  of  the  Bayeux  Tapestry,  where  five  men  may 
be  seen  applauding  Harold's  coronation  and  with  only  eight 
legs  between  them,  most  of  them  clearly  disconnected  with 
the  men. 

When,  therefore,  we  see  drawings  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
century  people  engaged  in  smiting  down  flying  birds  with  an 
arrow  from  a  cross-bow,  we  may  be  permitted  to  believe  that 
an  ideal  has  been  drawn,  and  that  most  of  those  who  tried  to 
kill  birds  in  flight  in  time  learnt  to  prefer  the  falcon  or  the 
net.  Even  stricken  deer  that  the  Middle  Ages  artists  show 
us  shot  through  the  neck  from  behind  must  have  had  totally 

13 


14  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

different  habits  from  their  present-day  relatives,  because  it  is 
not  the  habit  of  pursued  deer  to  hold  up  the  neck  but  to  carry 
it  horizontally  at  such  times,  so  that  the  back-to-throat  arrow 
would  be  possible  only  from  above. 

It  is  less  difficult  to  believe  the  writing  in  the  Master  of  the 
Game  and  its  French  original  than  to  believe  the  pictures  with 
which  the  latter  was  adorned — probably  long  afterwards,  by 
someone  who  had  not  the  authority  of  the  author. 

Artists  were  not  then  sportsmen,  but  in  Assyria  they 
obviously  were  so.  In  the  British  Museum  room  devoted  to 
that  ancient  kingdom,  in  low  relief  may  be  seen  much  that  is 
looked  for  in  vain  in  the  technically  superior  sculpture  of  the 
classic  periods  of  Greece  and  Rome.  That  is  to  say,  the 
actual  feelings  and  characters  of  the  beasts  are  conveyed  in 
the  outlines.  The  horses  were  obviously  of  precisely  the  same 
character  as  the  arabs  and  thoroughbreds  of  to-day.  They  are 
not  obstinate  brutes,  little  better  than  mules,  like  the  ponies 
of  the  Parthenon,  which  all  lay  back  their  ears  at  their  masters, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  the  Assyrians  are  generous,  high-spirited 
beasts  that  fight  with  their  masters,  pursue  in  spirit  with  them, 
and  fight  with  ears  laid  back  only  when  they  are  face  to  face  with 
a  lion,  and  going  to  meet  him.  The  artists  saw  it  all,  or  they 
would  have  blundered  in  the  expression  of  the  horse,  which  is 
mostly  in  his  ears,  but  they  never  blundered.  Surely  this  was  the 
first  shooting  recorded,  and  whether  it  was  done  by  bow  and  arrow 
or  by  hurling  the  dart  matters  nothing.  It  is  the  most  ancient  and 
the  most  authentic  of  all  the  ancient  records  of  sport.  If  it  were 
untrue,  it  would  be  the  most  contemptible,  because  the  most 
flattering  art.  But  it  bears  internal  evidence  of  its  own  truth,  and 
that  the  country  of  Nimrod  produced  mighty  hunters,  for  which 
there  is  also  Biblical  evidence ;  no  race  or  nation  of  sportsmen 
has  since  been  able  to  boast  similar  sportsmanship.  For  man 
and  horse  to  face  a  charging  lion  and  kill  him  with  a  spear, 
or  dart,  is  to  place  sportsmanship  before  human  life;  and  even 
David,  who  killed  a  lion  and  a  bear,  did  not  do  that,  but 
merely  defended  his  flocks,  probably  in  the  only  way  open  to 
him.      ITe  was  a    mighty  shepherd   and   a  mighty  king,  but 


ANCIENT  AND  MIDDLE  AGE  SHOOTING  15 

not  a  "mighty  hunter,"  and  "no  sportsman,"  as  the  story  of 
the  one  ewe  lamb  proved. 

It  is  a  long  jump  from  Nimrod  to  the  hunting  in  the  New 
Forest,  which  was  obviously  as  much  shooting  as  hunting,  when 
Rufus  was  killed  by  an  arrow,  meant,  or  not  meant,  for  a 
hart.  Whether  there  ever  were  outlaws  named  Robin  Hood 
and  Little  John  does  not  matter,  because  fiction  is  always  based 
on  fact,  or  it  does  not  live  a  day.  The  fiction  or  fact  of  the 
great  shooting  of  the  king's  deer  by  these  outlaws  has  lived 
seven  hundred  years,  and  it  is  more  easy  to  believe  that  there 
were  many  generations  of  such  poachers  and  highwaymen  than 
that  there  were  none  at  all.  The  highest  office  in  the  land 
was  then  one  of  robbery,  and  it  is  a  poor  king  who  has  not 
some  subjects  who  will  offer  him  the  sincerest  form  of  flattery, 
namely  imitation. 

Gunpowder  is  said  to  have  been  invented  in  China  many 
years  before  it  was  re-invented  in  Europe.  We  are  apt  to 
marvel  that  no  explosive  was  made  use  of  before,  but  learning 
was  very  much  in  the  hands  of  the  priests  at  a  time  when  the 
latter  class  was  especially  sincere,  and  when  the  people  were 
full  of  superstition  or  belief.  It  may  be,  then,  that  the 
first  discoverers  of  gunpowder  for  conscience'  sake  made  no 
use  of  what  must  have  appeared  to  be  an  invention  of  the 
Devil.  Such  inventors,  if  there  were  any,  might  have  been  the 
more  disposed  to  this  course  because  the  stuff  was  clearly  as 
destructive  to  its  users  as  to  an  enemy,  until  the  building  of 
guns  had  progressed  for  many  years. 

It  is  not  quite  certain  in  which  battle  was  first  employed 
gunpowder — a  fact  which  indicates  that  it  did  not  do  much 
for  its  side.  It  appears  to  have  been  the  guns  that  were  weak, 
not  so  much  the  powder,  which  was  probably  very  much  the 
same  when  used  by  Henry  VIII.  as  black  powder  is  to-day. 

It  is,  moreover,  not  certain  that  guns  were  any  better  at 
Waterloo  than  they  had  been  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth.  The 
reason  for  this  was  the  want  of  good  metal.  It  is  a  known  fact 
that  thickness  of  metal  becomes  useless  after  a  certain  point  is 
reached,  so  that  iron  and  brass  guns  could  not  be  made  to  take 


1 6  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

enormous  charges  of  powder  and  heavy  shot  without  bursting. 
This  might  have  been  done  by  making  them  very  long  and 
using  a  slow  burning  powder,  but  that  way  out  never  seems  to 
have  been  thought  of  until  recently.  The  reason  modern  big 
guns  will  take  such  enormous  pressure  as  the  big  charges 
behind  heavy  shells  give,  is,  first,  that  they  are  made  of  steel, 
and  second,  because  the  tension  on  the  steel  internally  and 
externally  is  equalised  by  a  very  clever  method.  The  guns 
are  built  up  by  being  bound  in  wire  in  a  heated  state,  so  that 
when  this  wire  cools  it  contracts  the  internal  tube  as  it  contracts 
itself.  This  being  the  case,  when  an  explosion  takes  place  in 
the  finished  gun,  it  has  to  overcome  the  wire  contraction  on 
the  outside  of  the  gun  before  the  internal  tube  can  begin  to 
expand  beyond  its  natural  size.  That  is  how  a  thickness  of 
metal  is  made  serviceable,  and  prevents  a  bursting  of  the 
internal  surface  before  the  external  bigger  surface  is  strained. 
In  other  words,  the  pressure  is  resisted  equally  all  through  the 
thickness  of  the  walls  of  the  barrel.  This  has  entirely  revolu- 
tionised big  gunnery  during  the  last  thirty  years,  and  has 
enabled  ships  of  war  to  hurl  800  lb.  shells  through  the  armour 
of  enemies  who  are  hull  down  beyond  the  horizon. 

Gunpowder  was  for  centuries  used  in  war  before  it  was 
much  used  in  sport.  The  reason  for  this  was  that  there  was 
no  good  method  of  letting  off  a  sporting  weapon.  To  apply 
a  match  to  a  touch-hole  obviously  took  a  good  deal  of  time, 
and  besides  gave  warning  to  the  game,  so  that,  although  shooting 
flying  game  had  been  at  least  an  ambition  in  the  days  of  the 
cross-bow,  shooting  the  game  upon  the  ground  with  "  hail  shot " 
was  practised  for  many  years  before  anyone  attempted  to 
kill  flying  game  with  shot  guns.  It  is  curious  that  when  this 
practice  was  in  vogue  dogs  were  taught  either  to  point  or  to 
circle  their  game  at  their  masters'  pleasure.  This  circling  had 
the  effect  of  indicating  the  exact  position  of  the  crouching 
covey,  and  at  the  same  time  of  preventing  the  birds  running 
away  from  the  shooter.  A  dog  that  would  "  circle  "  was  held 
in  much  more  esteem  than  one  that  would  only  point,  but  one 
that  would  do  both  was  far   the   most  highly  valued.      The 


ANCIENT  AND  MIDDLE  AGE  SHOOTING  17 

shooter  had  to  see  the  birds  on  the  ground  before  he  could 
bring  his  lumbering  weapon  to  bear,  and  begin  to  let  it  off. 
This  probably  continued  long  after  the  wheel-lock  was  invented, 
in  151 5  A.D. 

The  flint  and  steel  method  of  ignition  enabled  the  shot 
gun  to  be  used  on  flying  game,  but  the  flint  and  steel  came  in 
somewhere  about  the  year  1600,  and  shooting  flying  game  did 
not  become  general  until  after  1700  A.D. 

Meantime  there  had  been  royal  prohibitions  in  this  country, 
as  well  as  in  France,  against  the  use  of  hail-shot,  and  it  can  well 
be  understood,  at  a  time  when  shooting  at  coveys  on  the  ground 
was  considered  no  breach  ot  sporting  etiquette,  that  some 
restraint  became  necessary.  Before  the  use  of  the  flint  and 
steel,  the  heavier  weapons  were  employed  by  using  for  them  a 
stand  to  rest  the  muzzle  upon,  and  this  was  made  necessary,  not 
so  much  by  reason  of  the  weight  as  by  the  uncertainty  of  the 
precise  moment  of  the  explosion,  and  the  expediency  of  keeping 
the  weapon  "  trained  "  on  the  object  until  the  powder  chose  to 
catch  fire  and  explode. 

Before  the  invention  of  the  flint  and  steel,  the  value  of 
rifling  had  been  discovered.  There  is  a  doubt  whether  the  dis- 
covery is  due  to  the  late  fifteenth  or  the  early  sixteenth  century, 
but  at  any  rate  it  was  well  known  on  the  Continent  about 
1540  A.D.  There  are  rifled  barrels  at  Zurich  arsenal  that  have 
been  there  since  1544.  The  most  ancient  in  this  country  was 
brought  from  Hungary  in  1848,  and  bears  the  date  1547.  There 
has  been  an  idea  that  the  first  grooves  in  weapons  were  not 
spiralled  but  straight,  but  this  does  not  seem  to  be  correct,  as 
all  the  most  ancient  grooved  weapons  known  are  spirals  of  more 
or  less  rapid  turn.  Some  of  them  have  a  variation  of  twist 
within  themselves.  There  have  been  many  straight  grooved 
weapons,  but  the  object  of  them  is  lost.  It  has  been  suggested 
that  they  were  used  for  shot,  but  they  could  have  had  no 
advantage  over  smooth  bores  for  that  purpose,  and  no  advantage 
over  muskets  for  ball.  Nevertheless,  the  science  of  ballistics 
was  not  generally  understood  when  they  were  made,  and 
probably  a  rifled  shot  gun  would  have  been  attractive,  as  an 
2 


1 8  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

advertisement,  when  it  was  known  that  a  rifle  was  accurate 
with  ball,  and  when  the  reason  of  its  accuracy  was  unknown  to 
most  people. 

Although  it  was  at  once  recognised  that  the  rifle  was  far 
more  accurate  than  the  smooth-bore  musket,  nevertheless  three 
hundred  years  after  the  invention  of  the  former  it  had  not 
come  into  use  for  the  British  Army,  and  this  in  spite  of  the 
work  done  with  it  by  the  American  sharp-shooters  in  the  War 
of  Independence.  Even  long  after  Waterloo,  the  Duke  of 
Wellington  was  against  arming  the  soldiers  with  the  rifle,  and 
yet  he,  and  every  authority,  knew  of  its  infinite  superiority  as 
a  weapon  of  precision.  The  reason  for  this  was  very  easy  to 
understand.  The  muzzle-loading  rifle  was  no  more  accurate 
than  the  smooth  bore  unless  its  ball  fitted  close  and  took  the 
grooving.  In  order  that  it  should  do  this  it  had  to  be  forced 
down  the  muzzle  by  means  of  a  stifl"  ramrod  and  a  wooden 
mallet.  This  operation  took  too  much  time  for  war  purposes, 
and  it  was  generally  considered  that  a  musket  could  be  used 
five  times  for  once  of  the  rifle.  This  was  the  disadvantage  that 
did  not  really  totally  disappear  until  modern  breech-loading 
was  invented,  although  many  attempts  were  made  to  get  over 
the  difficulty  in  various  ways.  One  of  the  principal  of  these 
was  the  screwing  of  the  trigger  guard  into  the  barrel,  in  a  hole 
big  enough  to  take  the  proper  ball  for  the  bore;  then  the 
barrel  was  charged  from  the  muzzle,  and  loaded  with  the  bullet 
afterwards  from  the  hole  in  the  breech.  This  was  a  clumsy 
makeshift,  which  cut  away  nearly  half  the  barrel  at  that  point, 
and  this  the  metal  of  the  day  was  ill  able  to  stand.  The  other 
plan  was  the  adoption  of  the  principle  of  the  expanding  bullet. 
The  best  form  of  this  bullet  was  that  one  with  a  hollowing  out 
behind.  This  hollow,  of  course,  admitted  either  the  powder  or 
the  powder-gas,  which  expanded  the  rear  portion  of  the  bullet, 
and  forced  it  into  the  grooves  at  the  same  time  as  it  also  forced 
it  forward. 

It  is  extraordinary  to  consider  that  the  rifle  had  existed  for 
three  centuries  and  a  half  before  this  plan  became  effectiv^e,  and 
made  the  rifle  a  much  superior  weapon  to  the  musket.     If  any 


ANCIENT  AND  MIDDLE  AGE  SHOOTING  19 

country  had  discovered  it  at  the  time  of  Marlborough  or 
Wellington,  it  would  have  made  that  country  master  of  Europe, 
just  as  the  first  use  of  the  breech-loader  as  a  military  arm  made 
Prussia  and  her  needle  gun  invincible,  until  other  nations  also 
armed  themselves  with  the  breech-loader. 

It  has  often  been  said  that  "vile  saltpetre"  was  the 
deathblow  to  chivalry.  That  was  not  so;  the  long-bow 
and  the  cross-bow  had  before  this  made  Jack  as  good 
as  his  master,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  bow  was  much 
more  highly  valued  up  to  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  than  the 
gun  was. 

Nevertheless,  one  French  writer  attributes  the  loss  of  the 
battle  of  Crecy  to  the  English  use  of  guns,  and  he  goes  on  to 
show  that,  although  the  French  had  used  cannon  in  the  sieges 
of  castles,  they  would  not  employ  them  against  men.  The  fact 
that  gunpowder  was  known  in  Europe  long  before  Crecy,  and  is 
said  to  have  been  used  by  the  followers  of  Mahomet,  and  by 
the  defenders  of  India  against  Alexander  the  Great,  goes  to 
support  the  French  author's  views,  that  chivalry  forbade  the 
use  of  such  a  method  of  warfare. 

This  is  no  unsupported  view,  for  Pope  Innocent  III.  forbade 
the  use  even  of  the  cross-bow  against  Christian  enemies,  but 
permitted  it  against  Infidels.  It  was  even  said  that  Richard  I. 
was  killed  by  a  shot  from  a  cross-bow  because  he  had  disre- 
garded the  Pope's  Bull  in  the  use  of  the  weapon.  This 
common  belief  well  indicates  the  superstition,  or  religion, 
of  the  people,  and  is  ample  to  account  for  the  very  slow 
growth  of  the  use  of  gunpowder  up  to  the  time  of  Agincourt, 
which  was  obviously  won,  like  the  Black  Prince's  victories 
over  France,  by  the  English  long-bow;  and,  in  the  winning, 
destroyed  the  dying  embers  of  the  spirit  of  chivalry.  That 
gunpowder  did  not  do  this  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that 
Sir  John  Smyth,  a  general  of  Elizabeth's  army,  declared  he 
would  take  10,000  bowmen  against  20,000  armed  with  the 
match-lock  of  that  period. 

More  than  this,  a  match  was  made  at  Pacton  Green,  in 
Cumberland,  as  lately  as  1792  with  the  bow  against   the  gun, 


20  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

probably  the  Brown  Bess,  to  test  the  two  for  warlike  purposes 
at  lOO  yards  range,  and  the  bow  won  easily. 

General  military  opinion  had  then  gone  against  the  bow, 
but  obviously  there  was  not  much  in  it,  for  the  rifle  was  only 
supplied  to  the  rifle  brigade,  and  not  to  the  general  army. 

The  latter  was  first  armed  with  the  rifle  at  the  time  of  the 
Crimea,  when  the  Minie  rifle  was  adopted.  A  well-tempered 
sharp  arrow  could  cut  through  armour  as  well  as  the  slow 
bullets  from  hand  guns,  but  armour  remained  of  some  use 
against  both,  and  it  only  disappeared  as  big  guns  came 
into  general  use  in  the  field,  which  was  long  after  they 
had  been  used  in  and  against  Norman  castles  and  town 
walls. 

Perhaps,  with  the  exception  of  the  Assyrians  and  the 
ancient  Egyptians,  the  most  ancient  warriors  were  a  boasting, 
cowardly  lot,  like  the  leading  gentlemen  of  Homer,  and  the 
still  more  cowardly  understudies  who  stood  still  to  watch 
while  their  chiefs  were  engaged  in  combat.  Even  Goliath 
advanced  to  single  combat,  and  his  side  never  fought  at  all 
when  David's  shooting  instrument  went  true.  It  is  not, 
however,  on  record  that  Goliath  had  a  shooting  instrument, 
and  it  may  fairly  be  urged  that  this  early  knight  intended 
to  bar  shooting,  and  was  a  true  forerunner  of  the  knights  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  who  also  attempted  to  bar  shooting  by  the 
aid  of  Pope  Innocent  III.  Passing  over  those  ancient  Greek 
and  Israelitish  times  to  the  classic  period  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  when  battles  were  fought  by  the  whole  of  the  armies 
engaging,  we  find  that  then  shooting  in  any  form  had  very 
little  to  do  with  results.  That  is  to  say,  the  bow  and  arrow, 
which  became  so  deadly  in  the  Plantagenet  and  Lancastrian 
wars  in  P'rance,  were  not  relied  upon.  The  reason  seems  to 
have  been  that  the  classic  Greek  soldier  with  armour  and 
target  was  pretty  secure  against  the  arrow,  but  the  knight's 
horse  in  the  Middle  Ages  was  not,  and  could  not  be  made  so. 
Incidentally,  therefore,  it  is  fair  to  assume  that  war  had  again 
degenerated,  by  means  of  chivalry,  to  the  single  combat 
championship  stage,  and  that  the  first  side  to  make  the  whole 


ANCIENT  AND  MIDDLE  AGE  SHOOTING         21 

army  fight  won  the  day,  as  the  British  archers  won  it  for  the 
Black  Prince,  much  to  the  disgust,  as  well  as  the  defeat,  of 
the  French  knights. 

Until  15 15,  or  thereabouts,  when  the  wheel-lock  was 
invented,  the  gun  could  only  be  used  with  a  match-lock  of 
kinds,  and  the  circling  pointer  was  very  much  in  demand  to 
indicate  the  exact  position  of  the  covey.  The  sportsman  trained 
his  hail-shot  loaded  gun  on  the  spot  and  let  it  off.  This  form  of 
sport  became  possible  almost  as  soon  as  gunpowder  was  invented, 
but  there  is  no  record  of  it  until  much  later,  when  it  had  become 
so  destructive  to  game  as  to  be  forbidden  by  edict.  Then  the 
flint  and  steel  lock  was  introduced,  so  that  no  sooner  had  the 
circling  dog  come  to  perfection  than  he  found  his  business  gone, 
for  he  was  not  wanted  for  the  shooter  of  flying  game,  at  a  time 
when  the  latter  sat  well  enough  not  only  for  the  bad  marks- 
man, but  also  for  the  net  as  well. 

There  is  a  picture  of  a  deer  drive,  dated  1644,  in  De 
Espinar's  book,  where  the  sportsman  has  a  heavy  gun  in  a 
movable  rest,  but  what  kind  of  boring  and  ignition  were 
employed  is  not  to  be  discovered.  It  is  possible,  however,  that 
both  rifling  and  the  flint  and  steel  were  employed,  for  they 
must  have  been  very  tame  deer  that  would  have  remained  in 
one  position  long  enough,  in  a  drive,  to  have  been  done  to 
death  by  means  of  any  device  for  quickening  up  the  match- 
lock. Indeed,  the  long-bow  would  have  been  much  the  more 
deadly  shooting  instrument. 

In  modern  times  the  long-bow  has  become  a  toy,  but,  even 
as  such,  shows  itself  capable  of  more  accuracy  than  the 
musket  had.  That  flying  shots  were  not  impossible  with 
either  the  long-bow  or  cross-bow  has  often  been  proved,  and 
there  is  one  well-known  instance  where  a  swallow  on  the 
wing  was  pierced  by  an  arrow,  and  remained  upon  it  about 
half-way  down  the  shaft.  But  when  the  arrow  was  a  weapon 
of  war  the  minimum  distance  for  practice  for  a  man  was 
220  yards,  and  the  flight  of  an  arrow  then  was  very  far  beyond 
the  powers  of  the  toy  bow  now  used  in  the  pretty  game  of 
archery. 


22  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

The  author  has  practised  with  both  cross-bow  and  long-bow. 
As  a  boy  he  has  had  many  a  shot  at  a  flying  pheasant  with 
the  former,  and  although  he  never  hit  one,  that  was  probably 
only  because  the  art  of  building  cross-bows  died  with  those 
who  had  need  of  them. 

It  is  known  as  a  matter  of  fact  that  gun  metal  was  very  poor 
stuff  when  the  early  cannons  were  made,  and  it  can  be  gathered 
that  powder  was  not  of  the  best,  as  the  proportions  by  weight 
of  shot  to  powder  were  for  the  biggest  cannon  as  two  of  shot  is 
to  one  of  powder,  and  for  the  smallest  bores  as  ^  lb.  of  shot  is  to 
I  lb.  of  powder,  and  to  shoot  this  8  oz,  of  shot  the  weight  of 
gun  required  was  300  lbs.,  and  the  bore  i  inch,  or  about  five 
times  as  much  weight  as  we  should  require  now  for  that  weight 
of  shot,  for  which  we  should  not  use  |  lb.  of  powder,  but  a  couple 
of  ounces  would  be  ample.  The  only  proportions  of  powder  and 
shot  at  all  like  these  that  have  been  used  in  modern  days  are  in 
some  of  the  gun-proving  charges  and  loads,  where  there  was  a 
good  deal  of  windage  between  the  ball  and  the  walls  of  the  barrel, 
and  this  is  a  fault  in  economy  that  the  Middle  Age  gunners  were 
compelled  to  adopt,  and  it  probably  accounts  to  some  extent 
for  their  amazing  charges  of  powder  for  the  weights  of  shot 
employed,  so  that  the  powder  was  probably  a  good  deal  better 
than  these  proportions  suggest,  and  the  metal  of  the  guns  a 
good  deal  worse. 


ON  THE  CHOICE  OF  SHOT  GUNS 

THE  first  thing  for  the  novice  to  do  is  to  get  advice.  The 
difficulty  will  not  be  in  the  getting  but  in  the  selection 
afterwards.  The  majority  of  experienced  shooters  will  not 
bother  the  novice  with  their  views,  but  will  advise  him  to  go  to 
the  best  gun-maker  he  can  afford  to  employ  and  take  his 
advice ;  but  this  amounts  also  to  taking  his  guns,  and  it  may  be 
that  a  novice  can  do  much  better  than  that.  The  majority  of 
shooters  when  they  know  what  they  want  can  possibly  afford 
best  guns  from  best  makers,  and  perhaps  have  enough  sport  to 
justify  the  i8o  guineas  that  a  pair  will  cost.  But  all  shooters 
at  the  beginning  cannot  afford  to  find  out  their  requirements 
upon  anything  of  the  sort ;  this  is  proved  by  the  much  greater 
number  of  second  and  third  grade  than  of  best  guns  made  and 
sold  every  year. 

Besides,  the  majority  of  gun-shops  are  stocked  heavily  with 
second-hand  and  second-quality  guns,  that  can  be  bought  from 
^15  to  £2^  each,  and  the  most  difficult  second-hand  guns  to 
find  in  London  are  those  of  the  best  makers,  who  only  turn  out 
one  quality,  namely  the  best,  which  are  worth  more. 

It  would  be  an  invidious  selection  to  name  the  best  gun- 
makers,  and  impossible  besides,  for  their  products  are  the 
offspring  of  the  brain,  eye,  and  hand  of  the  cleverest  workmen, — 
sometimes,  but  rarely,  their  nominal  makers, — and  these  crafts- 
men are  human  :  they  change,  and  even  die.  That  is  the  reason 
that  the  best  guns  of  one  season  do  not  always  come  from  the  same 
shops  as  the  best  of  another.  But  not  one  amateur  expert  in  a 
hundred,  and  not  one  shooter  in  ten  thousand,  will  be  able  to 
detect  the  difference  by  external  examination.     It  is  there,  and 


24  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

is  important ;  and  some  day  the  gun  that  has  not  passed  a 
master  in  the  prime  of  critical  observation  will  have  an 
accident  and  break  down,  just  at  the  wrong  moment  probably  ; 
whereas  the  best  work  of  a  best  gun-maker  will  wear  out  its 
barrels,  and  then  another  pair,  before  anything  goes  wrong  with 
its  works,  and  before  its  splendid  fitting  and  superior  metal 
allow  the  barrels  and  the  action  to  suggest  divorce  proceedings, 
by  gaping  in  each  other's  presence. 

But  if  one  cannot  name  the  best  makers  and  continue  to  live, 
it  is  possible  to  get  over  the  difficulty  by  suggesting  that  most 
gun-makers  have  price  lists  of  second-hand  guns  in  their 
possession,  and  from  these  lists  the  status  of  the  various  gun- 
makers  in  the  country  can  be  gathered.  But  even  this  is  not 
quite  a  reliable  method,  for  those  makers  who  turn  out  second 
and  third  quality  guns  may  be  represented  by  their  best,  or 
their  worst,  in  these  lists,  whereas  the  men  who  have  only  one 
sort  can  only  be  represented  by  the  best. 

Then,  again,  the  fashion  changes,  and  guns  which  a  few 
years  ago  were  best  and  latest  fashion  are  soon  out-dated,  and 
then  they  rank  in  price  with  second  or  third  quality  guns  that 
are  made  in  the  latest  fashion.  Thus  a  hammerless  gun  is  not 
now  fashionable ;  it  must  be  hammerless  ejector,  and  for  choice 
with  a  single  trigger.  Then  hammer  guns  of  the  best  make  can 
be  bought  for  a  sixth  of  their  original  cost,  just  as  muzzle- 
loaders  are  totally  unsaleable  except  in  the  Colonies. 

Instead,  therefore,  of  giving  i8o  guineas  for  a  pair 
of  hammerless  ejectors  by  a  best  maker,  the  novice  may  for 
about  a  third  of  the  sum  procure  a  pair  in  every  way  as  good 
by  the  same  maker,  if  he  foregoes  the  ejector  part  of  the  latest 
fashion.  But,  in  order  to  make  sure  of  fair  treatment,  dealing 
only  with  the  most  reputable  establishments  is  advised,  because 
it  has  been  known  that  the  less  particular  traders  have  them- 
selves altered  an  old-fashioned  gun  into  an  ejector,  and  sold  it 
as  the  gun  of  a  first-rate  maker,  whereas  it  would  have  been 
more  properly  described  as  their  own  work.  However,  there  is 
always  a  check  on  this  kind  of  thing,  because  every  gun  is 
numbered  by  those  makers  whose  weapons  are  worth  having, 


ON  THE  CHOICE  OF  SHOT  GUNS  25 

and  a  letter  to  the  maker,  giving  the  number  and  description  of 
the  gun,  will  probably  be  the  cause  of  detection  of  any  fraud 
of  this  kind. 

In  order  satisfactorily  to  buy  second-hand  guns,  a  shooter 
should  know  exactly  what  bend,  length  of  stock,  and  cast  on  or 
off  he  takes,  and  should  also  be  able  to  measure  these  dimensions 
for  himself;  for  it  is  not  wise  to  have  a  second-hand  gun  altered 
to  fit,  not  even  if  it  is  done  by  its  own  maker. 

The  best  way  is  not  to  throw  up  a  gun  in  the  shop  and  buy 
it  by  the  feel.  There  it  may  feel  to  fit  when  it  does  not  do  so ; 
and  it  is  possible  to  discard  as  ill-fitting  the  very  gun  that  is 
exactly  right.  It  is  only  out  of  doors  at  moving  objects  that 
most  people  handle  a  gun  as  they  do  at  game.  Consequently 
it  is  cheap  in  the  end  to  go  to  a  shooting  school  and  be 
measured  for  a  gun.  There  the  beginner  will  be  tested  in  every 
way  and  for  every  class  of  shot  and  angle  of  aim.  It  is  not 
intended  to  suggest  that  shooting  schools  do  not  make  mistakes, 
for  they  do.  But  the  wise  man  will  not  be  satisfied  until  he 
has  been  able  to  handle  the  try  gun  in  a  satisfactory  manner 
when  bent  to  his  proposed  measure.  That  is  to  say,  the  school- 
master and  the  pupil  have  got  to  agree  before  either  are 
likely  to  be  right,  and  if  the  pupil  cannot  agree  with  one  master 
he  can  try  another. 

The  author  knows  one  fine  performer  who  placed  himself 
in  the  hands  of  two  experts  in  close  succession.  The  stock 
measurement  of  one  was  cast-on,  and  a  good  deal  of  it ;  that 
of  the  other  was  cast-off,  and  also  much  of  it.  He  had  guns 
built  to  each.  Naturally  one  might  say  they  were  both  wrong, 
but  as  a  matter  of  extraordinary  fact  they  were  both  right ;  for 
this  fine  shooter  performs  equally  well  with  both  guns,  and 
would  probably  do  so  with  any  other  weapon.  Of  course  he  is 
the  exception,  and  it  would  be  unwise  for  others  to  attempt  to 
shoot  alternately  with  two  guns  as  different  as  these  are, 
because  the  practice  with  one  would  be  unlearning  for  the 
other. 

The  object  of  taking  much  trouble  to  get  a  true  measure, 
in  writing,  is  that  the  testing  of  many  guns,  by  putting  them 


26  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

to  the  shoulder,  alters  a  shooter's  method  of  doing  this  ;  and 
although  the  change  may  be  only  slight  and  temporary,  it  is 
enough  to  prevent  an  accurate  selection  in  a  gun-shop.  The 
written  measure  reduces  the  number  of  guns  to  be  tried,  or 
handled,  by  90  per  cent.,  which  greatly  assists  the  process  of 
selection,  not  only  in  the  way  named  above,  but  by  allowing 
more  time  for  a  thorough  trial  of  each. 

If  a  young  shooter  is  going  to  shoot  in  parties,  and  not  by 
himself,  the  bore  of  his  gun  is  practically  settled  for  him.  It 
must  be  12  bore,  because  otherwise  he  can  be  no  help  to 
other  shooters  in  the  lending  of  cartridges,  nor  they  to  him. 
This  is  very  important,  and  becomes  more  so  in  exact  degree 
as  bags  increase.  The  ammunition  cart  cannot  be  everywhere 
at  once,  and  the  work  to  be  done  by  a  host's  servants  should 
never  be  unnecessarily  added  to  when  they  are  most  busy. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  quite  permissible  to  take  a 
20  bore  on  to  the  moors  to  shoot  over  dogs  in  early  August. 
Some  people  think  that  a  20  bore  shoots  closer  than  a 
12  gauge,  but  that  is  a  mistake.  It  spreads  its  shot  quite  as 
much  as  the  larger  bore,  but  it  has  fewer  shot,  and  consequently 
the  pattern  is  thinner.  Few  people  have  either  kind  bored  to 
shoot  as  closely  as  possible,  but  when  each  is  so  bored  the 
12  gauge  will  always  be  the  more  powerful,  unless  heavy 
20  bores  are  built  to  shoot  1 2  gauge  loads. 

This  does  not  imply  that  a  shooter  will  always  get  the  most 
out  of  a  1 2  bore. 

Lightness  of  weight  assists  walking,  and  also  quickness  in 
shooting,  so  that  it  is  possible  in  some  hands  for  the  worst 
gun  to  do  the  most  work.  It  is  the  fashion  to  use  a  pretty 
heavy  gun  for  driving ;  the  greater  the  head  of  game  there  is, 
the  more  certainly  does  one  require  a  gun  to  kick  but  little ; 
and  there  is  no  cure  for  kick  except  weight.  For  shooting  over 
dogs  the  weight  is  generally  a  greater  objection  than  recoil, 
because  the  number  of  shots  fired  will  not  be  likely  to  be  so 
many  as  to  make  a  heavy  recoil  unbearable  by  too  frequent 
repetition.  Still,  for  the  sake  of  a  slight  difference  of  weight, 
it  is  not  usually  necessary  to  have  different  guns   for  driving 


ON  THE  CHOICE  OF  SHOT  GUNS  27 

and  for  shooting  over  dogs.  There  is  a  mistaken  idea  that  only 
a  heavy  gun  will  shoot  a  heavy  charge  well,  but  this  is  not  so. 
Some  years  ago  there  were  a  good  many  4f  lb.  12  gauge 
guns  built  to  shoot  full  12  bore  charges.  Some  of  them  shot 
as  well  as  7  lb.  guns,  but  there  are  good  and  bad  of  all  weights 
and  gauges. 

It  is  by  no  means  urged  that  a  12  bore  for  walking  up 
partridges  and  shooting  grouse  over  dogs  should  be  as  light  as 
those  "  feather-weights "  were,  because  recoil  was  unpleasant 
from  them,  even  if  only  a  few  shots  were  fired.  The  contention 
is  merely  that  a  light  12  bore  will  kill  as  well  as  a  heavy 
one,  provided  it  carries  the  same  charge  and  load,  and  its  barrels 
are  as  long  as  the  heavy  gun's  tubes.  The  only  possible 
difference  will  be  caused  by  the  greater  jump  of  the  light 
gun,  and  this  jump  may  in  some  light  weapons  uncentre  the 
pattern.  That  is  not  a  subject  to  speculate  about,  but  is  one 
for  trial. 

But  it  is  not  only  light  guns  that  sometimes  do  not  shoot 
true.  No  double  rifles  can  by  measurement  ever  be  put 
together  so  that  both  barrels  shoot  to  the  same  place.  This  is 
accomplished  by  trial  and  regulating.  It  is  done  by  wedging 
the  muzzles  farther  apart  or  bringing  them  nearer  together  as 
the  case  may  require.  In  the  making  of  shot  guns  measure- 
ment is  supposed  to  be  enough ;  but  a  large  percentage  of  guns  do 
not  centre  their  loads  on  the  spot  aimed  at,  and  the  two  barrels 
frequently  shoot  to  a  different  centre.  Possibly  choke  bores  are 
most  liable  to  this  fault ;  at  any  rate,  they  are  much  more  easily 
detected,  because  their  patterns  are  smaller  than  those  of 
cylinders,  and  a  variation  from  centre  is  more  easily  noticed. 

When  this  inaccuracy  occurs,  people  may  say  that  the 
shooter  is  in  fault  and  not  the  gun.  Gunners  are  satisfied  with 
such  statements,  although  they  would  reject  a  rifle  that  shot 
with  a  quarter  of  the  inaccuracy. 

A  gun-maker's  business  is  to  show  true  shooting,  and  to 
keep  a  gun  tester  to  do  this  work,  and  to  show  that  all  guns 
sold  shoot  true  and  well,  and  that  all  rifles  can  make  small 
groups.     Naturally  the  young  shooter  will   believe  himself  to 


28  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

be  in  fault  when  he  sees  these  men  make  central  shots  time 
after  time  with  a  gun  or  rifle  that  will  not  do  it  in  novice 
hands.  But  some  of  these  experts  discover  at  the  first  shot 
where  a  barrel  throws,  and  make  the  necessary  allowance  for 
it  in  each  succeeding  shot. 

In  order  to  be  able  to  do  this,  a  man  must  have  wonderful 
confidence  in  himself;  but  some  experts  are  well  able  to  shoot 
one  shot  only  from  each  barrel  of  a  rifle,  and  then  regulate 
it  with  no  more  evidence.  Others  are  obliged  to  make  a  group 
with  each  barrel  in  order  to  negative  their  own  faults  of  aim, 
or  "  let  off."  That  will  possibly  be  the  young  shooter's  form  ; 
and  if  it  is  unfortunately  so,  all  the  same  he  is  the  man  who 
is  going  to  use  the  weapon,  not  the  gun-maker's  expert,  and 
consequently  his  own  test  is  the  best  for  him,  no  matter  how 
blundering  it  may  be. 

There  is  no  wisdom  in  being  satisfied  or  put  off  with  any- 
thing less  than  perfect  central  shots  of  the  shot  gun.  The 
relative  position  of  the  shot  centre  in  regard  to  a  small  bull's 
eye  is  not  easy  to  put  into  figures,  but  it  can  be  grasped  by 
the  mind  at  a  glance.  The  author  has  seen  some  close-shooting 
shot  guns  that  only  put  the  edge  of  the  30  inch  circle  of 
shot  on  to  the  bull's  eye.  This  represents  an  inaccuracy  of 
15  inches,  and  is  very  bad  indeed,  but  3  inches  of  inaccuracy  is 
more  than  equally  bad,  because  it  ought  not  to  exist ;  it  is  the 
worse  because  it  is  so  difficult  to  find  out.  At  the  best  there 
is  only  a  15  inch  limit  of  inaccuracy  of  aim  in  a  30  inch  pattern 
at  going-away  game.  That  is  small  enough  for  most  people 
who  shoot  swerving  partridges,  twisting  snipe,  and  rising  grouse. 
Three  inches  of  inaccuracy  of  gun  reduces  the  man's  limit  of 
inaccuracy  to  12  inches.  Is  it  enough?  The  author  believes 
that  most  guns  are  out  double  as  much  as  this  3  inches  at 
40  yards,  and  that  the  reason  is  that  they  are  not  usually 
treated  to  the  same  process  of  regulation  spoken  of  for  double 
rifles. 

Were  it  not  that  the  shot  strings  out  into  a  long  column 
with  as  much  as  30  feet  between  the  first  and  the  last  pellet 
at  40  to   50   yards  range,  it  would   be  barely  possible  to  kill 


ON  THE  CHOICE  OF  SHOT  GUNS  29 

at  all  when  the  pace  of  the  game  makes  great  allowances  in 
front  necessary. 

This  may  be  said :  that  3  inches  of  inaccuracy  is  not  much 
when  many  feet  have  to  be  judged,  and  that  is  perfectly 
true,  and  if  the  gun's  3  inches  of  inaccuracy  were  always  in 
the  same  direction  as  the  game  is  going — that  is,  3  inches  too 
forward  or  too  backward — there  would  be  nothing  in  it  to 
trouble  about ;  but  it  is  just  as  likely  to  be  an  error  at  right 
angles  with  the  line  of  flight  of  the  game,  and  then  it  does 
matter  very  much  indeed.  Even  if  a  miss  does  not  result, 
but  if  the  aim  is  true,  the  game  will  then  be  made  to  fly 
through  the  thin  part  of  the  circumference  of  the  shot  column. 
For  instance,  if  game  is  coming  directly  over  the  shooter,  and 
a  gun  inaccuracy  of  3  inches  makes  him  shoot  to  right  or  left 
of  the  line  of  flight,  that  error  is  increased  by  his  own  inaccuracy 
or  the  "  curl "  of  the  game,  which  together  may  easily  accom- 
plish the  other  12  inches,  and  then  the  game  would  be  outside 
of  the  column  of  shot  of  a  choke  bore  at  40  }^ards.  A  full 
choke  has  not  a  killing  circle  for  straight  going-away  game 
of  more  than  26  or  28  inch  diameter  at  that  distance.  On 
the  contrary,  a  true  cylinder  has  a  killing  circle  of  40  inches. 

This  appears  at  first  glance  to  be  a  very  great  advantage 
to  the  cylinder  user,  but  in  practice  there  is  not  much  in  it, 
provided  the  choke  bore  shoots  truly  to  centre.  If  it  does  not, 
it  is  absolutely  worthless,  whereas  the  cylinder,  with  an  equal 
fault,  is  a  bad  gun  but  not  worthless.  The  reason  of  this  is 
that  the  cylinder  spreads  more  than  the  choke.  The  "full 
choke  "  always  clusters  its  shot  in  the  centre,  and  although  the 
aim  of  gun-makers  may  be  to  get  an  even  pattern,  it  cannot 
be  done  with  a  full  choke  gun,  and  would  not  suit  everybody 
if  it  were  done. 

The  author  is  inclined  to  think  that  a  cylinder,  or  modified 
choke  bore,  is  better  than  a  full  choke  for  any  distance  or 
purpose  for  which  a  full  choke  bore,  with  an  even  distribution 
of  pellets,  is  better  than  another  with  a  central  clustering  of 
pattern.  Possibly  pigeon  shooting  is  an  exception ;  because 
there  is  no  use  in  killing  outside  the  boundary,  so  that  very 


30  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

long  shots  are  not  much  wanted,  and  quick,  hard  shooting  and 
an  even,  large  pattern  are  required.  But  with  game,  accuracy 
of  aim  is  preferable  to  extreme  quickness,  if  either  has  to  be 
sacrificed  to  any  great  extent.  You  go  out  to  shoot  to  please 
yourself,  and  nothing  will  accomplish  that  pleasure  so  certainly 
as  constantly  killing  game  at  distances  that  other  people  cannot 
reach.  Tall  pheasants  and  high  wild  duck  try  a  gun  as  well 
as  a  gunner,  and  if  the  latter  can  keep  in  the  line  of  flight  he 
can  shoot  at  some  angles  and  at  slow  birds  twice  as  strong  with 
a  choke  as  with  a  cylinder,  but  the  timing  of  the  shot  is  not  as 
easy  for  one  as  for  the  other. 

The  shot  spreads  laterally  nearly  half  as  much  again  for 
the  cylinder,  but  if  you  can  keep  your  gun  in  the  direction  of 
the  line  of  flight,  that  extra  lateral  spread  will  only  help  you 
for  fast  birds  crossing  at  right  angles.  This  is  the  least  difficult 
thing  to  be  done  in  killing  driven  game.  The  most  difficult 
is  accurately  timing  the  shot,  and  here  the  gunner  has  the 
advantage  of  the  longitudinal  spread  of  the  shot;  in  other 
words,  a  column  of  pellets  some  30  feet  long,  at  40  or  50  yards, 
is  sent  in  front  of  the  game,  which  has  to  fly  through  the  column 
as  the  latter  passes  the  line  of  flight.  The  cylinder  has  slightly 
the  longer  column,  and  the  column  is  slightly  thicker  through. 

Correct  timing  implies  that  no  part  of  the  column  of  shot 
passes  the  bird  before  his  head  is  in  it,  or  after  his  legs  are 
out  of  it.  But  this  absolute  accuracy  of  measuring  the  allow- 
ance in  front,  as  well  as  timing  the  "let  off,"  must  be  very 
unusual. 

It  may  be  said  that  it  is  not  easy  to  keep  the  gun  in  the 
direction  of  the  line  of  flight,  but  the  author  cannot  agree  to 
that,  except  when  the  game  swerves  after  the  "  let  off."  If  it 
does  that,  a  spread  of  shot  the  size  of  a  barn  door  would 
probably  miss  it,  and  the  one-third  bigger  lateral  spread  of 
the  cylinder  than  of  the  choke  bore  will  not  assist  once  in  a 
hundred  times. 

These  views,  although  not  perhaps  expressed,  are  largely 
acted  upon  in  practice.  Soon  after  choke-bore  guns  came  in 
they  became  very  unfashionable  for  game  shooting,  and  the 


ON  THE  CHOICE  OF  SHOT  GUNS  31 

author  was  himself  dreadfully  unfortunate,  for  his  form  dropped 
50  per  cent.  But  the  reason  was  that  his  first  choke  bores 
were  not  central  shooters,  and  it  was  then  very  difficult  to  get 
guns  of  that  boring  that  were  true.  That  it  was  no  fault  of 
choke  bores  as  such,  the  author  proved  by  having  his  guns 
rebored,  and  although  they  afterwards  shot  even  closer  than 
before,  they  killed  in  the  new  condition. 

One  fault  which  is  very  bad  in  choke  bores,  and  counts 
against  shooting  straight-going  and  straight-coming  game  well, 
far  more  than  with  cylinders,  is  that  of  patches  without  any 
shot  in  them  in  the  outer  edge  of  the  circle.  What  is  meant 
here  is  not  a  misdirection  of  the  load  but  an  erratic  spread  of 
it.  In  a  close-shooting  weapon  this  fault  is  almost  as  bad  as 
a  misdirection,  but  differs  in  this,  that  the  patch  varies  its 
position  with  each  shot.  These  patches  sometimes  extend 
from  the  outer  edge  to  very  nearly  the  centre  of  the  pattern, 
and  consistent  shooting  when  they  occur  is  impossible.  They 
are  not  chance  happenings,  and  can  be  obviated  by  good  boring 
and  good  loading.  The  author  thinks  they  most  often  occur 
when  the  shot  can  be  shaken  in  the  cartridge,  and  it  may  be 
that  a  size  of  pellets  which  do  not  lie  evenly  on  the  outer  circle 
on  the  wad  assist  in  deforming  the  pattern. 

But  theory  is  of  no  use,  and  it  is  the  gun-maker's  business 
to  sell  a  gun  that  he  can  show  has  none  of  these  faults. 
Whether  he  overcomes  them  by  a  change  in  size  of  shot, 
quantity  of  them,  or  in  an  alteration  of  brand  of  powder, 
matters  nothing  to  the  shooter,  and  is  not  his  affair.  Enough 
has  been  said  when  the  gun-buyer  is  placed  in  a  position  that 
it  took  the  author  many  years  to  arrive  at  in  regard  to  the 
choke  bore,  namely,  that  everything  on  the  plate  that  is  bad  is 
not  the  fault  of  the  shooter,  but  of  the  gun-maker. 

There  is  another  advantage  of  the  choke  bore.  It  shoots 
No.  5  shot  at  50  yards  as  hard  as  No.  6  is  shot  by  a  cylinder 
at  40  yards,  and  the  pattern  will  be  quite  equal  at  50  yards 
with  the  large  shot  to  that  of  the  cylinder's  small  shot  at 
40  yards. 

This  is  very  important  in  shooting  at  straight  coming  or 


32  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

going  grouse.  The  farther  off  the  first  bird  can  be  taken,  the 
more  certainly  will  the  others  be  killed.  No.  6  shot  has 
enormous  energy  when  the  speed  of  a  quick  advancing  bird 
is  added  to  the  speed  of  the  shot.  If  it  gets  in  the  bird,  it  will 
go  a  long  way  through  him  ;  but  when  grouse  are  coming  low, 
and  dead  straight  to  the  gun,  they  glance  the  small  shot  like 
a  shower  of  hail  upon  a  duck's  back.  Consequently  more 
heavy  shot  will  get  in,  although  fewer  will  hit. 

The  kind  of  gun  to  be  bought  can  hardly  be  determined 
until  the  shooter  has  settled  what  size  of  pellets  he  wants  to 
use  at  various  game.  Messrs.  Kynoch  sell  more  than  twice  as 
many  No.  5  shot  as  any  other  size.  No,  6  comes  next,  and 
Nos.  7  and  5|  are  nowhere. 

With  a  cylinder  gun  only  placing  100  pellets  of  No.  6  shot 
in  the  30  inch  circle  at  40  yards,  one  could  not  expect  great 
work  from  No.  5  pellets  on  birds  as  small  as  partridges  walked 
up.  The  pattern  would  be  too  open  at  40  yards,  and  the 
penetration  unnecessarily  high  at  25  yards. 

Some,  at  least,  of  No.  6  shot  has  penetration  for  a  slow 
partridge  flying  dead  away  at  40  yards.  With  a  very  quick 
driven  bird  shot  at  behind,  it  has  not  more  than  enough 
penetration  beyond  30  yards.  The  pace  of  the  retreating 
game  reduces  the  energy  of  the  impact,  but  there  is  very 
little  glancing  off  the  feathers  when  they  are  struck  from 
behind.  The  author  is  inclined  to  say  that  in  shooting  coming 
game  all  glancing  is  away  from  the  game,  and  from  behind 
all  glancing  from  feathers  is  into  the  bird.  He  has  himself 
heard  the  clatter  of  the  shot  on  a  straight-coming  duck  at 
about  30  yards  when  no  damage  whatever  was  done.  At 
a  low  skimming  partridge  coming  straight  for  an  open  gate- 
way in  which  the  writer  was  standing,  he  has  shot,  as  at  a 
sitting  mark,  for  there  was  neither  swerve  nor  rise  or  fall ;  he  has 
seen  the  earth  kick  up  all  round  the  bird  at  about  25  yards, 
and  has  not  been  any  nearer  bagging  the  game.  Surely  nothing 
but  glancing  shot  can  account  for  such  escapes, 

A  bird  partly  crossing  can  be  killed  farther  away,  but  a 
partridge  coming  dead  on,  in  spite  of  the  increase  of  impact 


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;>37  ii_'  4-'         2      :;.-';4 


ON  THE  CHOICE  OF  SHOT  GUNS  33 

caused  by  its  speed,  is  far  out  for  a  cylinder  and  No.  6  shot 
at  30  yards,  but  with  a  choke  bore  and  No.  5  shot  it  is  well 
within  range  at  40  yards.  Then  a  fast  going-away  driven  bird 
is  10  yards  nearer  than  it  looks  if  you  have  No.  5  pellets  in  the 
gun,  and  a  good  deal  farther  off  than  it  looks  if  you  have  No.  6. 

So  far  only  the  actual  bringing  down  of  game  has  been 
considered,  but  there  is  the  question  of  ethics  too.  With  all 
shot  there  is  some  distance  at  which  a  body  shot  ceases  to  be 
effective,  and  when  killing  must  depend  on  hitting  a  vital 
exposed  part,  or  the  wing.  As  the  body  is  more  than  twice  as 
big  as  these  exposed  vitals,  namely  the  head  and  neck,  it  follows 
that  the  body  will  be  hit  twice  as  often  as  these  vital  parts. 
Beyond  the  distance  at  which  body  shots  will  kill,  it  follows 
that  the  shooter  wounds  twice  for  every  head  he  bags.  Con- 
sequently there  is  a  wounding  distance  for  each  kind  of  shot 
pellet  for  straight  going  and  coming  game. 

This  wounding  distance,  for  No.  6  shot,  the  author  would  be 
inclined  to  place  at  all  ranges  beyond  30  yards  and  up  to 
100  yards ;  for  No.  5  shot,  all  distances  beyond  40  yards  and  up 
to  120  yards.  But  as  most  people  do  not  shoot  at  game 
beyond  50  yards,  for  practical  purposes  the  wounding  distance 
is  from  30  to  50  yards  with  No.  6,  and  from  40  to  50  yards 
with  No.  5  shot.  Full  feathered  partridges  are  the  birds 
alluded  to.  August  grouse  can  be  killed  farther  away  with 
much  more  certainty. 

In  all  the  public  London  trials  of  guns  the  patterns  of 
cylinders  have  not  averaged  as  high  as  100  pellets  of  No.  6 
in  the  30  inch  circle  at  40  yards  range.  With  i|  oz.  of 
No.  6,  of  270  pellets  to  the  ounce,  about  250  pellets  in 
the  same  circle  have  been  frequently  obtained  at  the  same 
40  yards  range  from  choke  bores.  But  the  majority  of  guns 
sold  as  cylinders  now  will  put  as  many  as  120  pellets  in  the 
circle,  and  the  author  has  seen  one  of  Holland's  put  160  pellets 
in  that  circle.  In  this  gun  there  was  no  noticeable  choke 
bore  when  a  barrel  gauge  was  used  at  all  distances  within 
8  inches  of  the  muzzle.  The  author  did  not  attempt  further  to 
learn  how  this  barrel  was  bored,  and  it  would  not  be  fair  to 
3 


34  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

expose  it  if  he  knew,  which  is  not  the  case.  But  now  that  the 
principle  of  boring  is  well  understood,  there  appear  to  be 
several  methods  by  which  a  similar  result  would  be  possible. 
The  barrels  are  known  to  stretch  very  considerably  under  the 
pressure  of  the  powder-gas,  and  consequently  any  treatment  of 
the  barrels  at  the  muzzles  that  would  prevent  them  stretching 
with  the  rest  of  the  barrel  would  act,  more  or  less,  like  a  modified 
choke.  This  might  be  done  perhaps  by  an  external  thicken- 
ing of  the  barrel,  or  by  a  hardening  of  the  metal  just  at  the 
right  spot. 

However,  to  prefer  a  cylinder  that  gives  a  high  pattern  to 
a  modified  choke  bore  that  does  the  same,  is  only  a  fad.  The 
former  is  difficult  to  obtain,  and  the  latter  is  everywhere ;  and 
it  is  not  the  modified  choke  that  so  often  is  made  to  shoot 
untrue  to  centre,  but  the  full  choke. 

The  disadvantage  of  the  choke-bore  pattern  is  that  it  may 
plaster  the  game  at  distances  nearer  than  the  cylinder  does. 
To  compare  the  two  patterns  made  at  20  yards,  it  is  difficult  to 
believe  that  the  choke  is  almost  as  free  from  plastering  as  the 
cylinder.  As  a  matter  of  fact  there  are  several  reasons  for  the 
well-known  surprise  that  it  does  not  often  plaster  feathered 
game. 

The  birds  are  not  often  coming  straight  at  the  gun  nor 
going  quite  straight  away  from  it,  and  any  tendency  to  cross 
the  line  of  aim  is  equivalent  to  allowing  the  game  some  benefit 
for  any  slight  inaccuracy  of  timing  the  shot,  and  any  wrong 
allowance  in  front.  For  instance,  perhaps  5  inches  too  much 
allowance  in  front,  with  otherwise  correct  timing,  at  20  yards, 
might  very  well  allow  half  the  shot  column  to  go  past  a  slow  bird 
before  he  flew  into  the  remainder  of  the  shot  column,  which 
would  be  equivalent  to  shooting  at  a  motionless  bird  with  only 
half  the  pattern. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  very  fast  bird  may  fly  right  through 
the  shot  column  before  more  than  half  of  it  has  passed  his  line 
of  flight.  When  the  bird  is  caught  by  the  centre  of  the  head  of 
the  column  at  20  yards  range,  he  has  but  10  inches  to  fly 
to  cret  out  of  the  line  of  flierht  of  the  shot  from  a  full  choke  bore. 


ON  THE  CHOICE  OF  SHOT  GUNS  35 

The  last  pellets  in  the  load  will  not  be  travelling  more  than 
700  feet  per  second,  and  fast  game  is  often  going  at  icx)  feet  per 
second  and  more,  although  newly  started  game  in  still  air  may 
not  often  exceed  60  feet  per  second.  But  probably  the  real 
reason  why  good  shots  especially  do  not  plaster  their  game  at 
near  distances  is  that  they  always  shoot  well  in  front,  with  a 
view  to  hitting  only  in  the  head  and  neck.  At  short  range  the 
slowest  pellets  are  quite  equal  to  killing  whenever  they  hit 
straight  for  a  vital  part,  exposed  or  otherwise.  A  shot  aimed  well 
forward  with  the  intention  of  almost  missing,  by  premature 
arrival  of  the  pellets  on  the  line  of  the  bird's  flight,  is  almost  sure 
to  result  in  the  cleanest  kind  of  kill,  brought  about  by  two  or 
three  shot  pellets  in  the  head  and  neck  and  none  anywhere  else. 

This  also  is  often  accomplished  even  at  long  distances,  but 
not  in  the  same  way.  Then  the  shot  that  succeeds  must  be 
well  timed  to  get  the  bird's  body  into  the  thickest  of  the 
pellets,  and  one  of  the  reasons  why  the  body  is  not  plastered 
is  that  from  most  angles  of  impact,  on  a  coming  bird,  the  body 
shots  glance  off,  and  only  the  head,  neck,  and  wing  shots  tell. 
The  only  great  chance  of  smashing  winged  game  that  occurs 
is  in  near  shots  at  going-away  game,  and  then,  whether  a  man 
holds  a  cylinder  or  a  choke  bore,  he  will  assuredly  give  lots  of 
"  law,"  even  if,  in  doing  so,  the  game  passes  out  of  sight. 

There  is  an  idea  that  the  killing  circle  from  a  gun  can  be 
mapped  out  by  geometric  progression.  That  is  to  say,  that 
if  lines  are  drawn  from  the  muzzle  to  the  extremity  of  a 
40  inch  circle  at  40  yards,  you  will  be  able  to  measure  off,  or 
calculate,  the  killing  circle  for  straight-away  game  at  any 
distance.  That  is  not  so.  At  the  nearer  distances  the  size  of 
the  killing  circle  is  regulated  by  the  pellets  that,  at  40  yards, 
are  outside  of  it  altogether.  There  they  are  too  thinly  scattered 
to  count  for  chances.  Thus  the  killing  circle  of  a  cylinder  and 
of  a  full  choke  have  no  relationship  to  each  other,  or  to  geo- 
metric progression  of  the  spread  of  pellets  for  each  distance. 

The  author  has  measured  many  patterns  at  different 
distances,  and  he  believes  that  the  following  table  shows  very 
truly  the  diameters  of  the  killing  circles  covered,  on  the  basis  of 


36 


THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 


that  pattern  which  was  regarded  as  thick  enough  to  kill  game  in 
the  cylinder  days.  That  is  to  say,  the  latter  sort  of  gun  was 
tried  at  40  yards  where  it  spread  fairly  evenly  over  a  40  inch 
circle.  But  its  proper  distance  was  30  yards,  and  at  that  range 
nothing  else  at  any  other  distance  gives  the  shooter  an  equal 
chance  with  No.  6  shot. 


For  Still,  or  Straight  Away,  or  Straight  Coming  Game. 
The  Size  of  the  Killing  Circle  based  on  a  Minimum 
100  Pellets  in  a  Circle  of  30  inch  Diameter 


Description  of  gun  and 
size  of  shot. 

At  20 
yards. 

At  30 
yards. 

At  40 
yards. 

At  50 
yards. 

At  60 
yards. 

Cylinder  and  No.  6  shot 

22  in.  A 

35  in-  A 

40  in.  B 

none 

Even      spreading      choke  \ 
bore  and  No.  6  shot         j 

20  in.  A 

26  in.  A 

30  in.  B 

374  in.  C 

45  in-  C 

Centre     clustering     choke  \ 
bore  and  No.  6  shot         / 

20  in.  A 

25  in.  A 

28  in.  B 

34  in.  C 

40  in.  C 

Cylinder  and  No.  5  shot 

21  in.  A 

34  in-  A 

none 

Even       spreading      choke) 
bore  and  No.  5  shot        / 

19  in.  A 

25  in.  A 

30  in.  A 
27  in.  A 

37i  in.  B 

none 

Central    clustering    choke\ 
bore  and  No.  5  shot        j 

19  in.  A 

24  in.  A 

35  in.  B 

none 

In  the  above  table  each  circle  of  shot  has  been  marked 
with  a  reference  letter,  which  is  intended  to  imply — 

A,  that  all  pellets  will  have  enough  strength  to  kill  if  they 
only  hit  the  body,  and  in  direct  line  for  a  vital. 

B,  that  only  the  fastest  pellets  in  the  load  will  have  enough 
strength  to  kill  by  body  shots,  and  that  at  least  half  the  pellets 
will  only  have  enough  strength  to  kill  if  they  hit  head,  neck,  or 
wing. 


ON  THE  CHOICE  OF  SHOT  GUNS  37 

C,  that  none  of  the  pellets  will  kill  by  body  wounds,  but 
only  the  small  number  that  chance  to  hit  head,  neck,  or  wing. 

The  pellets  that  come  under  the  description  applied  to  C 
can  be  greatly  extended  beyond  the  distances  named,  and  at 
ranges  to  which  it  would  be  foolish  to  apply  the  term  "  killing 
circles."  Thus  the  author  has  seen  a  roe  deer  killed  at 
60  yards  with  No.  6  shot  from  a  12  bore.  Lord  Walsingham 
has  made  four  consecutive  shots  with  No.  5  shot  at  wild  ducks 
at  an  average  range  of  about  88  yards,  or,  to  be  accurate,  at 
84^  yards,  89  yards,  84  yards,  and  1 14  yards.  But  these  lucky 
shots  in  vital  spots  do  not  affect  the  question,  except  to  show 
that  it  is  difficult  to  apply  a  limit  to  the  killing  power  of  even 
weak  pellets  when  they  strike  head,  neck,  or  wing.  Outside  the 
zone  marked  A  one  is  certain  to  do  some  wounding  without 
killing  the  game,  but  although  many  pellets  will  hit  without 
being  straight  for  vital  spots,  others  will  probably  kill  the  same 
bird.  But  in  the  C  zone  it  is  always  two  or  three  chances  on 
wounding  to  one  chance  of  killing. 

The  reason  for  attempting  to  draw  a  distinctive  line  between 
these  zones  for  the  different  guns  and  loads  is  that  there  is  far 
too  much  unhealthy,  random  shooting  at  game,  which  gives 
rise  to  prolonged  agony,  while  the  sportsman  is  dining  well,  and, 
as  he  believes,  sleeping  the  sleep  of  the  just.  Even  on  the 
baser  score  of  economy  and  next  year's  sport,  it  is  wise  to 
wound  no  more  game  than  human  blundering  compels,  and 
not  to  lay  ourselves  out  to  wound  by  attempting  to  kill  when 
the  chances  are  so  bad  that  the  wild  shooter  would  not  risk 
them  upon  a  horse  -  race,  much  less  in  a  mere  commercial 
speculation. 

There  has  often  been  controversy  on  the  difference  of 
penetration  from  a  choke  bore  and  a  cylinder.  When  penetra- 
tion was  taken  by  recording  the  number  of  sheets  of  paper,  or 
boards,  pierced  by  one  pellet,  or  even  by  three,  the  choke  bore 
always  won.  But  really  this  was  merely  a  double  counting  of 
pattern,  because  when  two  guns  shoot  with  the  same  velocity  of 
shot,  that  which  has  the  best  pattern  will  also  have  most  pellets 
through.     That   is   how  it  came   to  be  settled   by  the  public 


38  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

London  gun  trials  that  choke  bores  had  materially  the  most 
penetration.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  nobody  knows  which  has  most 
penetration.  Sometimes  the  number  of  sheets  pierced  by  half 
the  shot  which  hit  a  penetration  testing  pad  will  be  in  favour 
of  one,  and  sometimes  of  the  other  gun,  and  moreover  the 
difference  in  piercing  by  the  pellets  of  the  same  discharge  may 
be  as  much  as  two  to  one. 

Chronographic  testing  for  time  over  a  range  has  never 
proved  very  satisfactory,  for  the  instrument  makes  but  one 
record  of  time  for  300  different  pellets,  which  are  known  to 
vary  in  velocity  over  some  ranges  by  300  foot-seconds,  and 
in  striking  velocity  by  200  foot-seconds. 

This  was  brought  out  by  the  late  Mr.  Griffith,  who  as 
manager  of  the  Schultze  gunpowder  works  had  great  oppor- 
tunities, and  took  them.  Powder-makers  may  very  well  use 
the  chronograph  in  testing  powders  at  10  yards  range.  At 
this  range  Mr.  Borland  of  the  E.G.  Gompany  informed  the 
writer  that  he  could  never  find  a  difference  between  small  shot 
and  large  pellets ;  which  goes  to  prove  that  at  the  distance  they 
have  not  scattered  longitudinally  enough  to  make  the  chrono- 
graph the  absurdity  it  becomes  when  it  records  one  time  for 
300,  all  various. 

But  once  the  chronograph  was  used  for  small  shot  on  the 
right  principle.  This  was  when  Mr.  Griffith  applied  it  to  his 
revolving  target  experiments. 

He  did  this  to  discover  the  longitudinal  spread  of  the  shot 
pellets  at  various  distances.  If  ever  the  chronograph  could  be 
used  for  taking  differing  shot  velocities,  this  appears  to  be  the  way. 
But  it  has  never  been  repeated,  and  some  results  appear  to  throw 
doubt  upon  their  own  accuracy.  The  various  lengths  of  the 
shot  spread  on  the  targets  moving  at  200  f.s.,  at  right  angles 
with  the  line  of  fire,  were  as  follows  upon  the  top  lines.  On 
the  bottom  lines  in  the  table  the  shot  pattern  spread,  caused  by 
the  200  feet  per  second,  is  multiplied  by  the  ratio  of  greater 
speed  of  shot  than  the  200  foot-seconds  of  the  revolving  target. 
So  that  in  the  following  table  the  bottom  lines,  in  respect  of 
each  gun,  represent  something  near   the   true   length  of  shot 


ON  THE  CHOICE  OF  SHOT  GUNS 


39 


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40  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

column  at  each  distance.  The  speeds  taken  in  the  foregoing 
table  can  be  gathered  from  the  Griffith  figures  on  the  next  page. 
But  if,  for  the  30  yards  range,  the  truer  mean  speed  of  the 
shot  column  is  wanted,  this  is  equal  to  the  striking  velocity 
of  the  most  forward  pellets  and  the  velocity  of  the  rear  of  the 
column  added  together,  and  divided  by  two.  For  this  calcula- 
tion there  is  a  slight  inaccuracy  originating  in  the  following 
tables,  because  the  striking  velocity  of  the  rear  pellets  has 
been  taken  at  the  full  range,  instead  of  at  the  length  of  the 
shot  column  less  than  the  full  range.  This  position  can  only 
be  found  by  trial  and  error.  It  will  vary  the  results  by  a  yard 
or  two.      Inches  have  been  disregarded  in  the  tables. 

It  is  often  said  that  we  want  guns  to  send  their  shot  up 
all  together,  but  if  we  had  so  to  time  our  "  letting  off"  as  to 
cause  the  game  to  fly  on  to  a  knife  edge,  with  the  shot  spread 
out  like  a  tea-tray,  it  is  doubtful  whether  we  should  hit  oftener 
than  with  a  rifle.  Lord  Wolseley  tells  of  seeing  an  officer  who 
by  means  of  a  soldier's  rifle  killed  a  wild  goose  flying  high 
overhead. 

Keeping  the  line  of  flight  for  such  a  shot  would  not  be 
difficult,  but  the  timing  and  allowance  in  front  could  not  often 
be  so  cleverly  arranged.  That  is  the  reason  why  there  is  a 
good  deal  of  doubt  whether  we  want  to  decrease  the  length  of 
shot  columns,  and  besides,  if  we  did  wish  it,  probably  it  could 
not  be  done.  It  is  observable  that  the  extra  half-dram 
measure  of  powder  materially  increased  the  choke  bore's 
lengths  of  shot  columns.  It  also  had  a  very  great  influence 
in  the  increase  of  velocity  at  all  distances. 

The  length  of  the  column  of  shot  from  the  cylinder  gun  is 
longer  than  the  spread  from  the  choke  bore,  and  the  longer  the 
range  the  longer  is  the  column ;  but  strangely,  at  long  range, 
according  to  these  trials,  one  striking  velocity  of  the  first 
pellets  in  the  load  was  exactly  the  same  as  that  of  the  last 
pellets  to  strike  the  revolving  target,  although  mean  velocities 
for  the  range  were  very  different.  This  almost  shakes  con- 
fidence in  this  chronographic  record,  but  as  the  penetration 
tests  always   show   more   variation    between   pellets   than  the 


ON  THE  CHOICE  OF  SHOT  GUNS 


41 


differences  in  any  of  these  revolving  target  and  chronographic 
records,  it  may  be  that  the  apparent  paradox  of  pellets  getting 
farther  behind  but  nevertheless  maintaining  the  same  speed  as 
those  in  front  can  be  explained  by  a  constant  change  of  leaders, 
and  if  so,  also  of  followers  necessarily. 

These  phenomena  do  not  occur  except  at  the  extreme 
distance  of  55  yards,  and  they  are  totally  absent  even  at  that 
distance  with  the  choke  bore  and  49  grains  charge.  It  seems 
therefore  only  to  be  possible  when  the  pellets  have  dropped  to 
a  low  velocity.  At  shorter  ranges  there  is  sometimes  an  impact 
difference  of  200  feet  a  second  between  the  pellets  of  the  same 
load.  So  that  it  is  material  to  know  the  force  of  the  whole 
charge,  and  the  time  up  the  range  of  the  leading  pellets  is  no 
guide,  as  differences  equal  to  320  fs.  have  occurred  in  one  load. 

As  these  are  the  only  chronographic  tests  of  shot  pellets 
ever  made  with  a  view  of  finding  out  what  really  takes  place. 


Striking  Velocity  at  Various  Ranges  in  Foot-Seconds 
on  Mr.  GriffitHs  authority 


By  the 

fastest 

5  p.c.  of 

pellets. 

By  the  next 

25  p.c. 
of  pellets. 

By  45  p.c. 
of  pellets. 

By  the 
mean  of 
the  bulk. 

By  the  last 

3  p.c. 
of  pellets. 

Tchoke      (42) 

15  yards  j  choke      (49) 

[cylinder  (42) 

1013 
1050 
1003 

987 
1013 

955 

974 

1042 

962 

952 
965 
923 

813 
798 

742 

Tchoke      (42) 

25  yards-  choke       (49) 

[cylinder  (42) 

825 
890 
810 

792 
840 
769 

779 
806 

750 

748 
809 
724 

684 
699 
615 

fchoke      (42) 

35  yards -^  choke      (49) 

[cylinder  (42) 

691 

737 
672 

661 
699 
632 

660 
699 
636 

632 
67a 
619 

523 
564 
504 

fchoke      (42) 

45  yards -^  choke      (49) 

[cylinder  (42) 

581 
633 

561 

560 
598 
538 

549 
592 
523 

536 

573 
494 

489 

527 
48S 

fchoke      (42) 

55  yards  j  choke      (49) 

[cylinder  (42) 

377 
478 
382 

36S 
462 

374 

362 
457 
378 

344 
427 
370 

342 
418 
382 

42  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

the  striking  velocities  of  the  various  proportions  of  the  load 
at  different  distances  are  given  here.  But  although  this 
represents  the  only  use  of  the  instrument  for  this  purpose, 
on  truly  scientific  principles,  ever  recorded  in  print,  the 
author  would  be  sorry  to  affirm  the  absolute  accuracy  of  the 
instrument  on  this  or  any  other  occasion,  although  the  relative 
accuracy  of  one  record  to  the  other  is  much  more  likely  to  be 
correct. 

The  (42)  and  (49),  after  the  description  of  the  gun  in  the 
table  on  p.  41  refers  to  the  load  of  Schultze  powder,  and  in  all 
cases  i^  oz.  of  shot  No.  6  was  used. 

In  order  to  arrive  at  striking  velocity  from  these  trials,  it 
was  necessary  to  compare  the  time  taken  at  one  range  with 
that  taken  at  another  range  by  a  different  cartridge. 

That  in  some  cases  the  leading  pellets  are  recorded  as 
slower  than  those  behind  them,  is  not,  as  would  at  first  sight 
appear,  an  absolute  disproof  of  accuracy,  because  it  may  be 
that  the  leading  pellets  are  constantly  dropping  back,  and 
others  are  becoming  leaders.  Obviously  the  fastest  pellets  lose 
speed  at  the  greatest  rate,  and  obviously,  also,  the  leading 
pellets  get  least  help  and  give  most  to  their  neighbours,  by 
setting  up  air  disturbance,  or  a  breeze,  in  the  direction  of  the 
load. 

We  all  know  from  paper  pad  and  strawboard  tests  that  the 
penetration  of  pellets  from  the  same  discharge  often  varies  as 
two  to  one.  Some  of  these  records  do  not  confirm  this  ;  but  as 
they  can  only  be  accurate  on  the  assumption  of  that  which 
must  be  true — the  fluctuation  of  relative  positions  of  the  pellets 
in  flight — this  adds  to  their  value,  because  that  assumption  is  also 
required  to  explain  the  greater  known  variation  in  penetration 
than  the  most  indicated  in  these  tables  of  speed. 

The  above  remarks  have  been  founded  on  the  comparison 
of  the  chronographic  time  of  one  load  at  one  distance  with  that 
of  another  discharge  fired  10  yards  farther  away;  and  the 
mean  speed  over  the  10  yards  has  been  taken  as  the  striking 
velocity  at  the  midway  distance  of  the  10  yards.  This  is  how 
Mr.  Griffith  worked  out  the  striking?  velocities.     And  from  his 


ON  THE  CHOICE  OF  SHOT  GUNS  43 

figures  the  length  of  the  shot  column  can  only  be  got  at  by- 
making  some  use  of  a  comparison  between  shots  fired  at  one 
range  and  those  fired  at  another.  In  other  words,  the  length  of 
shot  column  approximately  found,  as  described,  when  divided  by 
the  difference  of  time  between  first  and  last  pellets,  brings  out 
the  average  velocities  of  the  shot  column,  at  the  instant  of  the 
leading  shot  striking  the  target,  too  high.  That  is  to  say,  the 
previous  length  of  column  having  been  found  too  much,  is 
taken  merely  as  a  basis,  to  indicate  the  position  in  the  rear  at 
the  length  of  the  column  away  from  the  target  at  which  to 
search  for  the  speed  of  the  lagging  pellets,  and,  with  these 
found,  and  the  speeds  of  the  leading  pellets  already  found, 
from  the  table  upon  page  41,  the  average  speed  has  been  dis- 
covered, and  actual  time  between  first  and  last  being  known, 
the  length  of  column  has  been  re-found  in  a  way  that  must  be 
as  accurate  as  any  records  can  be  that  are  based  on  two 
different  discharges  and  the  chronograph. 

Taking  the  length  of  the  column  of  shot,  it  is  clear  that  the 
difference  of  time  in  seconds  between  the  first  and  last  arriving 
pellets,  divided  by  the  length  of  the  column  in  feet,  will  give 
the  mean  velocity  of  the  shot  column  at  the  instant  the  first 
pellets  struck  the  target.  The  amended  figures  are  tabulated 
on  the  next  page. 

It  has  lately  been  attempted  to  show  that  Mr.  Griffith's 
measurements  are  not  supported  by  the  results  on  a  target 
passing  at  75  feet  a  second  at  right  angles  with  the  line  of 
fire.  But  this  speed  is  not  enough  to  prevent  the  irregular 
spread  of  the  shot  pellets  from  misleading.  In  other  words, 
the  faster  the  movement  of  the  target  the  less  will  the  elonga- 
tion of  pattern  depend  upon  the  accident  of  pattern,  and  the 
more  it  will  depend  upon  the  length  of  shot  column  and 
its  speed.  Besides  this,  birds  at  75  feet  per  second  are  not 
the  difficult  sort  that  people  want  to  learn  to  kill  in  a 
wind. 

In  the  following  table  it  is  seen  that  in  one  case  the 
column  is  no  longer  at  50  yards  than  at  40  yards,  and  we 
may  be  quite  certain  shot  columns  are  not  so  in  reality: — 


44 


THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 


"o  Jr*  «4 

52  A 

1 

0    4> 

a  0) 
^  a, 
0 

Mean  velocity  over  length  | 

111 

of  column, 

and  striking 

Xt3 

«  0 

velocity  at 

a  point  half 

X! 

the  length 

of  column  of 

'o'?^ 

o| 

shot  from  the  end  of  the 

•5  c  i2 

c 

range — 

Description 
of  gun 

i 

0      "3 

8  >:s 

As  found  by 

As  found  by 

and  load. 

2 

a^^- 

0  -C   H 

time  from 

time  from 

0     '-'^U-i 

uncorrected 
length  of 

corrected 
length  of 

1-1 

>3 

i5  s  S  ^ 

eg  2 

column  of 
shot. 

column  of 
shot. 

lO 

20 
30 

•007 

•0145 
•022 

12  feet 
16    „ 

1034 
1000 

863 
726 

Choke  bore, 
42  grains  of 
Schultze    and 

40 
60 

•036 
•046 
•054 

22    „ 
22    „ 

777 
630 

619 
489 

i|  oz.  No.  6 
shot. 

10 
20 

30 

•009 
•018 
•027 

16  feet 
20    „ 

1055 
1000 

884 
768 

Choke  bore, 

49      grains 

?     Schultze    and 

40 
60 

•0425 

•05 

•059 

27  „ 

28  „ 

776 
700 

647 
555 

the  rest  same 
as  above. 

10 
20 

•01 17 
•0222 

18  feet 

990 
823 

714 
526 

812 

Cylinder      gun 

30 
40 
50 
60 

■034 
•049 

•057 
•057 

26  „ 
28    „ 

27  » 

769 
583 
484 

!  and  42  grains 
of  powder  and 
shot  the  same 
as  above. 

The  only  way  that  this  extraordinary  result  can  be 
explained  is  this :  Mr.  Griffith  shot  at  his  revolving  targets 
set  behind  a  hole  of  4  feet  diameter  made  in  a  steel  plate, 
and  the  question  arises,  Would  not  any  shot  pellets  that 
were  only  travelling  at  382  feet  a  second  drop  out  by  the 
force  of  gravity,  and  never  pass  through  the  opening  at  all 
at  the  longer  ranges  ?  They  would  take  a  considerable 
fraction  of  a  second  to  reach  the  55  yards  range,  and  pellets 
would  drop  a  foot  by  the  force  of  gravity  in  ^-  second,  therefore 
some  of  them  would  not  pass  through  the  4  feet  opening.  On 
this  assumption,  instead  of  the  50  yards  columns  of  shot  being 
of  the  lengths  stated,  they  must  be  very  much  longer,  with  a 
continuous  dropping  of  the  weaker  shot  all  up  the  range. 


ON  THE  CHOICE  OF  SHOT  GUNS  45 

It  is  often  asked  how  it  happens  that  so  few  fast  driven 
birds  are  wounded.  They  are  either  killed  or  not  hit  as  a 
rule,  even  when  they  are  high  up.  Another  query  is  as  often 
heard :  "  Why  are  fast  birds  more  difficult  than  slow  ones  ? " 
It  appears  that  one  answer  can  be  supplied  from  the  tables 
already  given  to  both  questions.  It  is  often  said  that  it  is 
difficult  to  lead  "tall"  birds  enough,  but  the  farther  away 
game  is,  the  slower  the  gun  has  to  move  in  order  to  race,  and 
beat  it,  so  that  this  is  evidently  not  the  explanation.  Taking 
the  corrected  length  of  the  various  columns  of  shot  at  most 
of  the  ranges  above  30  yards,  and  comparing  the  average 
speeds  of  the  fag  end  pellets,  as  given  in  the  table,  with 
the  distance  they  have  to  go,  while  the  bird  has  merely 
to  go  from  2  to  4  feet  to  get  out  of  their  line,  it  will  be 
found  that  game  at  60  feet  per  second  cannot  get  clear 
of  any  part  of  the  shot  column  if  it  is  timed  properly, 
whereas  game  at  100  feet  per  second  will  clear  about 
40  per  cent,  of  the  length  of  column  in  some  cases,  and  only 
incur  danger  from  60  per  cent,  as  he  flies  through  it.  This 
seems  to  be  ample  reason  for  the  greater  difficulty  of  fast 
game. 

Here  are  a  few  examples  with  the  42  grain  charge: 
allowing  6  inches  for  half  the  length  of  the  bird,  and  adding 
this  to  the  diameter  of  flying  shot  column  at  various  ranges, 
it  is  found  that  in  order  to  get  clear  while  the  shot  column 
is  passing,  the  bird  at  60  feet  per  second  takes  .041  of  a 
second.  At  100  feet  rate  of  flight  he  will  take  .025  of  a 
second,  and  the  shot  takes  but  .022,  so  that  the  game  does 
not  get  an  advantage  here  at  30  yards.  But  at  40  yards  the 
slow  bird  takes  .05  of  a  second  and  gets  no  advantage;  the 
fast  one  takes  .03  of  a  second,  and  here  the  time  of  the 
column  is  .036,  so  that,  however  good  the  timing,  the  bird 
misses  some  shot.  At  50  yards  it  is  still  worse  for  the  slow 
bird,  which  takes  .062  of  a  second  to  get  through,  and  better  for 
the  fast  one,  that  takes  only  .037  of  a  second,  when  the  shot 
occupies  .046  of  a  second  for  the  whole  column  to  pass. 

There  is  not  much  difference  for  the  49  grain  charge  from 


46  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

the  choke  bore.  At  30  yards  the  shot  column  takes  .027  of  a 
second  to  reach  the  distance  after  the  first  pellets  are  up.  The 
60  feet  a  second  bird  takes  .041  of  a  second,  and  the  100  feet 
per  second  bird  takes  but  .025,  or  a  less  period  than  the  shot 
column.  At  40  yards  the  slow  bird  takes  .050  and  the  fast 
one  .030  of  a  second,  and  the  shot  occupies  .042  of  a  second. 
At  50  yards  the  times  are  .062  for  the  slow  bird  and  .037  for 
the  fast  one,  and  the  period  taken  by  the  shot  column  is  .050 
of  the  unit  of  time;  so  that  at  the  longer  range  the  best 
timing  possible  would  only  give  the  game  |^  of  the  shot  he 
would  have  as  a  slow  bird. 

The  cylinder  bore,  with  its  longer  column  of  shot  and 
wider  spread  as  well,  is  a  little  different  in  effect.  At  30  yards 
the  period  occupied  between  first  and  last  pellet  is  .034  of  the 
second,  and  the  slow  game  takes  .050,  and  the  fast  .030  of  a 
second.  At  40  yards  .049  is  the  period  for  the  pellets;  and 
.062  and  .037  of  a  second  those  for  the  quick  and  tardy  game, 
so  that  there  is  twelve  parts  in  every  49  of  the  shot  rendered 
useless  in  spite  of  the  best  possible  timing  and  the  truest  of 
allowances  in  front.  At  50  yards  the  shot  pellets  occupy  .057 
of  a  second  for  the  rearguard  to  come  up  to  the  distance, 
and  the  game  takes  respectively  .075  and  .045  of  a  second  for 
the  slow  and  the  fast.  So  that,  again,  one  gets  all  the  benefit 
as  if  he  were  still,  and  the  other  cannot  do  so  under  any 
circumstances. 

In  the  last  case,  at  40  yards,  every  misjudgment  of  distance 
to  allow  ahead  by  i  foot  is  equivalent  to  .016  of  a  second  off  the 
total  of  .049  second  occupied  by  the  shot  column,  so  that  3  feet 
of  error  will  be  equivalent  to  a  total  miss  for  the  slow  bird, 
whereas  for  the  fast  bird  every  foot  of  error  is  equivalent  to 
.010  of  a  second,  and  5  feet  of  error  in  judgment  in  allowing 
in  front,  may  enable  you  to  hit  with  the  tail  end  of  the  shot 
column,  but  only  to  wound  most  likely. 

The  best  shot  -  gun  experiments  ever  made  with  the 
chronograph,  therefore,  show  that  if  you  have  to  aim  5  feet 
in  front,  and  do  aim  10  in  front,  you  do  not  necessarily  totally 
miss  at  40  yards ;  whereas  if,  instead  of  aiming  5  feet  too  much 


ON  THE  CHOICE  OF  SHOT  GUNS  47 

in  front,  in  like  circumstances,  the  gunner  aimed  5  feet  behind, 
or,  in  other  words,  dead  on  the  mark  with  a  still  gun,  a  hit 
would  be  impossible :  the  game  would  never  be  in  the  line  of 
the  shot  after  the  trigger  was  pulled.  This  would  be  so,  even 
although  the  gun  was  following  round  with  the  bird ;  so  as  to 
ensure  no  loss  consequent  on  the  time  occupied  by  the  pull  of 
the  trigger.  It  is  clearly  better  to  aim  greatly  too  much  in 
front  than  a  little  too  much  behind. 

Even  before  the  author  ever  engaged  in  driving  game,  he 
had  shot  at  the  first  bird  of  a  covey  and  killed  the  last  one, 
7  or  8  yards  behind.  In  shooting  driven  game  this  is 
not  an  uncommon  experience  for  beginners,  and  is  a  very 
useful  lesson  ;  for  nobody  has  ever  had  the  opposite  experience, 
and  killed  the  first  bird  when  shooting  at  the  last.  But  when 
this  shooting  at  the  pigeon  and  killing  the  crow  occurs,  it  is  not 
always  because  of  so  vast  a  misdirection  as  is  suggested.  Five 
feet  of  error  at  least  may  be  accounted  for  by  the  longitudinal 
spread  of  the  shot,  besides  something  more  for  the  lateral 
spread.  Indeed,  two  birds  in  the  same  covey,  one  8  feet 
behind  the  other,  have  been  killed  at  one  shot ;  but  it  rarely 
happens.  Nevertheless,  when  one  of  the  two  is  much  the  further 
away,  as  well  as  behind,  then  a  bird  a  very  much  greater 
distance  than  8  feet  behind  the  one  shot  at  and  killed,  may 
also  fly  into  the  shot,  and  die  too.  In  practice,  however,  it  is 
very  much  easier  to  miss  a  whole  pack  of  grouse  that  look  to 
be  near  enough  together  to  kill  a  dozen  at  a  shot.  If  one 
tries  to  do  a  bit  of  "  browning,"  it  is  generally  not  the  birds  that 
are  "  done  brown."  If  it  is  not  the  survival  of  the  fittest  that 
has  evolved  grouse  that  look  so  much  nearer  together  than  they 
are,  it  must  be  a  wise  provision  of  nature  in  the  interests  of 
sportsmanship. 

From  what  has  been  said,  it  will  be  gathered  that  when 
game  is  crossing  fast,  wounding  is  caused  by  bad  timing.  The 
game  is  either  through  the  shot  column  before  much  of  it  has 
reached  his  line  of  flight,  or  he  has  not  reached  the  shot  column 
when  the  majority  of  it  has  passed  his  line  of  flight.  In 
either  case  he  gets  but  a  small  proportion   of  the  shot  pellets 


48  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

correct  timing  would  have  given  to  him.  Wounding  zones 
and  killing  circles  as  applied  to  straight  -  away  game  have 
little  to  do  with  it.  Provided  timing  is  right,  superficial 
"  wounding  zones  "  help  the  kill,  because  the  game  that  passes 
through  them  also  passes  through  the  bulk  of  the  shot  column 
before  or  after.  Even  patchy  patterns  on  the  whitewashed 
plate  may  be  quite  evenly  distributed  to  the  game  flying 
through  the  section  of  the  column  of  pellets.  One  thing  that 
is  perhaps  worth  noting  is  that  if  the  head  of  the  column  of 
pellets,  or  first  arrivals  of  the  pattern,  surround  crossing  game 
evenly,  the  bird  will  have  so  short  a  distance  to  go  that  he  may 
be  out  of  the  circumference  of  the  shot  column  before  a  quarter 
of  the  pellets  have  come  up  to  his  line  of  flight,  and  if  he  loses 
a  tail  feather  and  drops  a  leg  it  will  not  be  because  of  a  large 
wounding  zone  of  shot  in  the  superficial  target  sense  ;  indeed,  a 
larger  wounding  zone  of  that  kind  might  help  in  such  a  case : 
the  fault  will  be  because  the  game  had  not  to  fly  through  the 
whole  section  of  the  column  of  shot. 


Actions  of  Guns 

The  actions  of  guns  were  at  one  time  so  important  that 
gun-makers  were  selected  by  reason  of  the  merit  of  their 
patents.  The  tendency  of  the  early  actions  to  part  from  the 
barrels  at  the  false  breech  was  so  great,  that  actions  became  of 
the  first  importance.  Patents  are  now  run  out,  and  con- 
sequently every  gun-maker  can  select  the  best  and  make  it,  and 
may  be  trusted  to  do  so  provided  the  weapon  is  to  be  paid  for 
at  a  figure  that  pays  for  best  work  and  best  material.  If  this 
is  not  the  case,  still  the  gun-maker  will  put  in  the  best  action 
that  can  be  made  for  the  money  to  be  charged  ;  in  other  words, 
he  will  put  in  the  cheapest  good  design  of  action,  but  not 
necessarily  good  workmanship.  When  dovetails  are  used  to 
join  up  the  barrels  and  the  false  breech,  it  is  not  because 
the  design  of  action  is  not  good  enough  to  do  without  them, 
but  simply  that  the  workmanship  or  fitting  is  not  good 
enough.     Often  the  third  grip  does  not  fit,  and  is  only  for  show. 


ON  THE  CHOICE  OF  SHOT  GUNS  49 

Ejectors 

What  has  been  said  of  actions  applies  also  to  ejectors.  If 
all  the  patents  have  not  run  out,  plenty  of  good  ones  have 
done  so,  and  the  gun-maker  has  a  great  choice  and  nothing 
to  pay  for  it. 

The  principle  of  the  ejector  is  that  with  split  extractors 
there  is  a  connection  between  the  fall  of  the  tumbler  or  hammer 
and  an  ejecting  mechanism,  or  lock  in  the  fore  end  of  the  gun. 
The  opening  or  closing  of  the  gun  after  firing  is  made  to  cock 
the  tumblers,  strikers,  or  hammers,  and  also  to  put  the  ejector 
at  full  cock,  or  otherwise  bring  it  ready  for  action,  then  when  a 
shot  is  fired  the  fallen  hammer  or  tumbler,  or  its  re-cocking,  is 
made  to  react  on  the  ejector  at  that  stage  of  the  opening  gun 
when  the  extractors  have  already  moved  the  empty  cartridge- 
case.  The  undischarged  cartridges  are  therefore  extracted,  but 
not  ejected,  and  the  used  cases  are  ejected. 


Safety  of  Guns 

The  safety  bolt  placed  upon  hammerless  shot  guns  is  very 
necessary.  It  ought,  when  placed  at  safety,  to  prevent  the 
lock  springs  working,  and  should  prevent  the  possibility  of  the 
scear  being  released  from  the  catch,  or  bent,  or  scear  catch. 
Mr.  Robertson,  proprietor  of  Messrs.  Boss  &  Co.,  has  shown 
conclusively  that  a  slight  rap  on  the  lock  plates  will  disconnect 
any  scear  catch,  and  so  let  off  the  gun  when  not  at  safety, 
unless  it  is  also  protected  with  an  interceptor,  which  is  moved 
out  of  the  way  of  the  falling  tumbler,  or  striker,  only  by  the 
pull  of  the  trigger.  Mr,  Robertson's  own  single-trigger  action 
is  also  a  safety  action,  even  when  very  light  trigger  pulls,  such 
as  I  lb.,  are  employed. 

The  strength  of  barrels  is  assured  by  the  proof  of  .hem 
at  the  London,  Birmingham,  and  foreign  proof  houses,  with 
loads  and  charges  larger  than  for  service.  Anyone  in  doubt 
about  purchasing  guns  and  rifles  would  be  well  advised  to  write 
to  the  Proof  Master  for  the  literary  matter  issued  for  the  pro- 
4 


50  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

tection  of  the  public  and  guidance  of  the  trade.  This  changes 
from  time  to  time,  but  at  present  it  gives  very  full  information 
of  the  meaning  of  the  various  foreign  proof  marks  as  well  as  of 
our  own. 

Cross-Eyed  Stocks 

It  is  often  suggested  that  a  thumb-stall  which  stands  up 
and  blocks  the  fore  sight  from  the  left  eye  is  an  assistance  to 
right-shouldered  shooters,  and  sometimes  it  is.  But  as  it  has 
no  effect  on  the  manner  of  bringing  up  the  weapon,  it  must 
require  revision  to  get  the  correct  aim  if  the  weapon  is  not 
brought  up  correctly.  The  author  thinks  that  a  long  course  of 
shutting  the  left  eye  will  force  the  right  eye  into  becoming 
governing  eye  by  habit.  Some  people  have  neither  eye  greatly 
the  governor,  so  that  each  has  an  influence  on  the  manner  of 
the  "present,"  and  helps  to  fix  the  point  the  gun  is  brought 
up  to.  This  point  may  be  half-way  between  the  extended 
lines  from  the  two  eyes  to  the  foresight,  and  permits  of  no 
real  alignment  until  the  gun  is  moved  after  presentation, 
which  is  always  slow.  For  such  men  nothing  but  shutting  one 
eye  will  be  of  much  use,  but  for  those  who  have  a  controlling 
left  eye  it  is  different,  and  a  cross-eyed  stock,  or  shooting  from 
the  left  shoulder,  is  to  be  recommended.  Those  who  have  a 
control  eye  need  not  necessarily  be  able  to  see  the  game  with 
it.  Provided  they  see  the  latter  with  one  eye  and  take  alignment 
of  the  breech  and  fore  sight  with  the  control  eye,  that  is  enough. 
If  the  eyes  are  pairs — that  is,  not  crossed — and  produce  on  the 
brain  but  one  image  of  an  object  focused,  then  the  direction  of 
the  alignment  over  or  upon  the  game  or  target  is  accomplished 
in  the  brain,  and  the  hands  obey.  That  is  to  say,  the  left  eye 
may  be  unable  to  see  the  sights,  and  the  right  eye  may  be 
unable  to  see  the  game,  but  as  the  images  on  both  are  super- 
imposed on  the  brain  the  aim  is  quite  correct  for  normal  eyes. 
A  beginner  thinks  this  impossible,  but  if  he  uses  a  thumb-stall, 
and  blocks  the  fore  sight  from  the  left  eye,  and  puts  a  card 
over  the  muzzle,  so  as  to  block  the  right  eye  from  seeing  the 
target,  and  then  focuses  the  latter,  and  not  the  fore  sight,  he 


ON  THE  CHOICE  OF  SHOT  GUNS  51 

will  soon  become  unconscious  that  he  is  blocking  out  anything 
from  either  eye. 

As  the  ability  of  the  eyes  has  had  to  be  referred  to  here,  it 
may  be  well  to  remark  that  any  normal  eyes  can  see  the  shot 
in  flight  against  the  sky,  and  this  ability  has  been  used  to 
advantage  in  coaching  shooters.  To  see  this  phenomenon, 
stand  slightly  behind  the  shooter,  and  look  for  a  little  darkening 
of  the  sky  in  the  direction  of  the  aim  ;  it  will  be  easily  seen  about 
the  time  the  shot  has  spread  to  a  foot,  or  so,  diameter.  Whether 
anyone  can  see  the  shot  much  nearer  than  1 5  yards  or  farther 
away  than  20  yards  is  questionable ;  the  spread  of  the  pellets 
reduces  the  dark  shade-like  appearance,  and  it  vanishes. 
Consequently,  experts  who  see  clay  birds  apparently  in  the 
middle  of  the  pellets  may  be  quite  correct  at  short  distances, 
and  appearances  may  be  absolutely  wrong  for  game  or  clay 
targets  at  distances  farther  away  than  the  shot  can  be  detected. 
The  bird  may  have  flown  another  two  yards  by  the  time  the 
shot  intersects  its  line  of  flight.  Consequently,  this  ability  of 
the  coach  to  see  the  shot  should  only  be  relied  upon  at  about 
20  yards  range. 


SINGLE-TRIGGER  DOUBLE   GUNS 

THE  idea  of  a  single  trigger  to  double  guns  cannot  be  said 
to  have  occurred  to  anyone  as  an  original  conception, 
since  it  was  natural  that  at  the  first  attempt  to  build  those  toys 
(as  Colonel  Thornton  considered  double  guns,  when  he  was 
upon  his  celebrated  Highland  tour),  the  inventor  must  have 
exercised  some  ingenuity  to  supply  these  first  double  guns  with 
two  triggers.  It  was  as  natural  to  attempt  to  make  double 
barrels  with  one  trigger  as  for  a  duck  to  swim.  First,  because 
single  barrels  were  the  fashion,  and  second,  because  single-trigger 
double  pistols  were  made  and  were  successful.  It  was,  however, 
at  once  discovered  that  the  action  of  the  double  pistol  would 
not  do ;  it  let  off  both  the  shoulder  gun's  barrels  apparently  as 
one.  For  a  century  afterwards  repeated  attempts  were  made 
to  overcome  this  double  discharge,  and  many  patents  were 
taken  out  on  the  strength  of  the  inventor  having  discovered 
"  the  real,  true  cause  "  of  the  involuntary  discharge  of  the  second 
barrel,  by  the  pull  off  that  was  intended  to  actuate  only  the 
first.  However,  the  problem  remained  commercially  unsolved 
until  Mr.  Robertson,  of  Boss  &  Co.,  of  St.  James's  Street, 
overcame  the  difficulty,  and  took  out  a  patent,  about  1894,  for 
an  action  that  prevented  the  unintentional  double  discharge. 
The  great  success  of  this  action  led  to  some  hundred  patents 
being  taken  out  between  that  year  and  1902.  But  most  of  them 
were  afterwards  dropped,  and  found  not  to  effect  the  prevention 
of  the  double  discharge  for  which  they  were  designed.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  reason  of  the  involuntary  discharge  of  the 
second  barrel  was  not  understood,  not  even  by  Mr.  Robertson, 
who   had,  by  trial   and  error,  arrived  at  a  perfect  system  of 

62 


SINGLE-TRIGGER  DOUBLE  GUNS  53 

overcoming  the  difficulty,  without  being  aware  of  what  really 
occurred. 

In  the  autumn  of  1902  the  author  contributed  some 
letters  to  The  County  Gentleman,  which  explained  the 
difficulty ;  but  his  discovery,  for  such  it  has  proved  to  be,  was 
hotly  disputed  in  a  correspondence  led  by  some  of  the  leaders 
of  the  gun  trade.  This  was  by  no  means  wonderful,  although 
it  is  disconcerting  for  a  discoverer  to  be  treated  as  "  past  hope  " 
when  he  is  so  unfortunate  as  to  make  a  find  that  can  do  him 
no  good,  but  ever  since  must  have  saved  much  in  work  and 
patent  fees  to  the  gun  trade. 

The  accepted  view  of  involuntary  pull  prior  to  this 
discovery  was  that  after  the  shot  from  the  first  barrel,  recoil 
jumped  the  gun  away  from  the  finger,  and  then  the  shoulder 
rebounded  the  gun  forward  on  to  the-  stiff  finger,  which,  being 
struck  by  the  trigger,  let  off  the  second  barrel.  The  author 
for  some  time  previous  to  1902  had  become  conscious  that 
this  explanation  was  open  to  question.  However,  it  was  not 
until  he  sat  down  and  worked  out  the  times  of  recoil  and 
finger  movement,  that  he  felt  safe  in  challenging  so  generally 
accepted  a  statement.  But  this  calculation  proved  to  him 
that,  so  far  from  rebound  causing  the  unwished-for  "  let  off," 
the  latter  occurred  in  one-twentieth  of  the  time  occupied 
by  the  recoil  backwards.  However,  the  author's  powers  of 
persuasion  failed  to  convince  everybody,  and  for  this  reason 
the  editor  of  The  County  Gentleman,  with  the  assistance  of 
Mr.  Robertson,  of  Boss  &  Co.,  and  of  the  late  Mr.  Griffith, 
of  the  Schultze  Powder  Company,  formed  a  committee  of 
experts  to  test  the  point  by  chronographic  examination. 
Results  were  published  in  The  County  Gentleman  on 
December  6,  1902,  and  were  to  the  effect  that  the  second  dis- 
charge came  in  one-fiftieth  of  a  second  after  the  first  discharge, 
but  that  the  recoil  backwards,  before  rebound  could  occur, 
took  from  four  different  shooters  respectively  .32,  .29,  .34,  and 
.38  of  a  second,  or,  roughly,  an  average  of  one-third  of  a 
second.  So  that  it  was  demonstrated  that  the  rebound  from 
the  shoulder  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  involuntary 


54  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

pull.  The  true  and  now  always  accepted  cause  was  as  the 
author  had  stated  it  to  be — namely,  that  the  recoil  jumped 
the  trigger  away  from  the  finger  in  spite  of  the  muscular 
contraction  that  still  continued  after  the  let  off  of  the  first 
barrel ;  that  this  muscular  contraction  continued  to  act  and 
again  caught  up  the  trigger,  as  soon  as  the  pace  of  recoil  was 
diminished  by  the  added  weight  of  the  shoulder,  and  so  the 
finger  inflicted  a  heavier  blow  or  pull  on  the  trigger  than  in 
the  first  pull  off.  In  the  first  pull  it  was  finger  pressure,  in 
the  next  it  was  pressure  acting  over  distance,  and  was 
measurable  in  foot-pounds,  as  work  or  energy  is  measured. 
This  proved  to  be  the  correct  solution. 

Consequently,  a  good  single  trigger  is  one  that  prevents  this 
finger  blow  from  discharging  the  second  barrel.  It  is 
impossible  to  prevent  the  blow  itself,  but  quite  easy  to  prevent 
it  letting  off  the  second  lock.  There  are  at  least  three  principles 
employed  for  doing  this. 

The  first  is  called  the  three-pull  system ;  it  is  based  on 
the  necessity  of  either  the  voluntary  second  pull,  or  involuntary 
blow  (as  the  gun  may  be  loaded  or  unloaded),  for  intercepting 
the  trigger  connection  which  the  subsequent  release  of  the 
trigger  allows  a  spring  to  place  in  readiness  to  receive  the  third 
trigger  pull,  and  act  on  the  second  tumbler ;  this  pull  in  the 
unloaded  gun  is  observed  to  be  a  third  pull,  and  in  the  loaded 
one  is  only  observable  as  a  second  pull,  because  the  second  has 
been  given  involuntarily,  and  not  consciously. 

The  double-pull  actions  are  different  in  principle.  Most  of 
them  are  based  upon  a  lengthening  of  the  time  between  the 
first  let  off  and  the  connections  with  the  second  lock  coming 
into  position  for  contact  with  the  trigger.  In  other  words, 
they  are  time  movements,  based  upon  the  knowledge  that 
the  second  pull,  or  impact  of  trigger  and  finger,  came  very 
quickly,  and  that  to  delay  the  intermediate  connecting  link 
between  trigger  and  second  lock  until  after  this  unconscious 
impact  rendered  it  inoperative. 

A  third  system  is  somewhat  different,  but  is  also  a  timer 
action.     It  is  based  upon  having  a  loose  or  nearly  loose  piece, 


SINGLE-TRIGGER  DOUBLE  GUNS  55 

which  is  partly  independent  of  the  gun,  and  either  by  its 
lesser  motion  or  want  of  movement,  during  the  jump  back  of 
the  recoiling  gun,  gets  in  the  way  of  a  further  trigger  move- 
ment, until  the  recoil  of  the  gun  is  over,  and  the  weak  spring 
can  replace  the  independent  piece  in  its  normal  position  again. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  greatest  advantage  of  a  single 
trigger  is  the  facility  with  which  it  can  be  removed  and 
double  triggers  substituted.  But  this  is  merely  what  those  gun- 
makers  have  said,  who,  being  obliged  to  have  a  single-trigger 
action  of  their  own  for  those  who  ask  for  them,  have  been 
too  proud  to  pay  a  royalty  for  a  good  one,  and  have  not  felt 
quite  safe  in  recommending  their  own  to  good  customers. 

The  real  advantages  of  a  single  trigger  are  many.  First, 
one  does  not  have  to  shift  the  grip  of  the  gun  for  the  second 
barrel.  As  explained  above,  recoil  occupies  one-third  of  a 
second,  and  one  does  not  want  to  add  to  the  jump  of  the  gun 
during  recoil  by  partly  letting  go,  nor  to  be  unready  at  the 
end  of  it,  by  still  having  to  move  the  right-hand  grip  in 
changing  triggers.  In  practice,  the  single  trigger  is  also  much 
the  quicker.  It  is  not  necessary  to  say  anything  about  cut 
fingers  and  their  avoidance  by  the  use  of  single  triggers.  But 
a  wonderful  advantage  is  in  the  more  correct  length  of  stock. 
If  one's  gun-maker  gave  one  a  stock  an  inch  too  long,  or  short, 
in  double  triggers,  he  would  be  thought  not  to  know  his 
business.  There  is  only  one  best  length  for  everybody,  but 
every  double  trigger  has  two  lengths  of  stock,  one  an  inch 
longer  than  the  other. 

The  author  is  told  that  there  are  still  some  very  bad  single- 
trigger  actions  being  made,  but  that  is  quite  unnecessary 
when  the  best  can  be  employed  by  paying  a  royalty,  as  some 
of  the  best  gun-makers  are  in  the  habit  of  doing,  or  were,  until 
the  recent  action  Robertson  v.  Purdey  was  settled. 

Probably  it  would  be  more  correct  to  say  that  the 
principal  advantage  of  a  bad  single  trigger  is  that  it  can 
readily  be  exchanged  for  a  good  one.  The  author  would  not 
on  his  own  authority  speak  of  bad  single  triggers,  because  he 
has  tried  most  of  them,  and  had  difficulty  with  none. 


AMMUNITION 

THE  time  has  not  yet  arrived  for  us  to  have  a  smokeless 
powder  as  regular  in  its  action  and  as  little  affected  by 
heat  as  black  powder  was,  neither  have  we  as  free  an  igniting 
powder,  which  is  of  less  moment. 

Nitro  powders  have  greatly  improved  of  recent  years,  and 
would  doubtless  have  continued  the  progress,  but  they  have 
been  brought  up,  and  to  a  standstill,  in  the  last  two  or  three 
years  by  a  sort  of  trade  agreement,  or  an  invention  of 
"standard"  loading,  which  may  be  supposed  to  have  had  its 
origin  in  the  wholesale  cartridge  trade,  since  it  is  impossible 
that  it  can  be  good  for  sportsmen,  or  for  those  who  try  to  fit 
shooters  with  their  personal  requirements,  or,  in  other  words, 
try  to  load  a  sportsman's  gun  according  to  the  individual 
requirements  of  gun  and  man. 

We  are  still  in  the  dark  ages  of  "  pressure  "  testing,  or  trying 
the  strength  of  powders  by  the  work  they  do  upon  plugs 
inserted  through  the  walls  of  testing  guns,  and,  outside,  in 
contact  with  lead  or  other  metal  that  the  explosion,  in  moving 
the  plugs,  crushes.  In  doing  this  the  powder-gas  does  "  work  " 
which  would  be  correctly  measurable  in  foot-tons,  but  is 
supposed  to  be  measured  in  static  pounds,  which  is  similar  to 
dropping  a  weight  upon  a  scale  balance  and  mistaking  the 
weight  for  the  work  done  by  the  drop.  For  instance,  if  we 
drop  a  pound  weight  a  foot  on  to  a  scale  balance,  the  work  it 
does  is  equal  to  one  foot-pound.  But  if  we  place  it  on  the 
scale  gently,  it  will  just  balance  one  pound  on  the  other  side. 
One  is  weight  and  the  other  is  energy,  which  are  not  com- 
parative terms.     Yet  in  testing  powders  the  fashion  is  to  take 

56 


AMMUNITION  57 

the  measure  of  some  unknown  proportion  of  the  energy  and 
to  call  it  static  pounds. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  fashion  is  to  make  the  exactly 
contrary  mistake  in  testing  guns  for  shooting  strength.  The 
flattening  of  the  shot  pellets  on  a  steel  plate  is  the  result  of 
energy;  here  the  flattening  of  lead  by  which  "pressures"  are 
erroneously  taken  is  ignored  and  scouted,  and  velocity  is 
considered  the  thing  to  judge  by,  although  it  is  only  the 
velocity  of  one  pellet  out  of  three  hundred  which,  at  20  yards, 
vary  by  as  much  as  3CX)  foot-seconds  mean  velocity. 

In  a  lecture  delivered  by  the  late  Mr.  Griffith,  of  Schultze 
Company  fame,  it  was  said  quite  truly,  and  with  proper  pride, 
that  the  velocity  of  shot  had  increased  during  the  last  twenty 
years  by  100  feet  per  second  at  40  yards.  During  this  time 
recoil  has  been  reduced  very  much,  only  apparently  in  defiance 
of  the  law  that  action  and  reaction  are  equal  and  opposite. 

Recoil  is  equal  to  the  total  momentum  of  shot,  wads,  and 
powder-gas,  and  what  the  powder  people  have  done  is  to 
reduce  that  portion  of  recoil  that  was  not  represented  by 
momentum  of  the  shot,  but  was  represented  by  the  momentum 
of  waste  powder-gas. 

Consequently,  what  has  been  got  rid  of  in  twenty  years  is 
some  momentum  of  powder-gas,  which  has  served  two  purposes 
— first,  by  permitting  some  extra  strength  of  powder,  to  put 
some  extra  momentum  into  the  shot  pellets,  and  to  somewhat 
reduce  recoil  in  spite  of  this.  That  then  was  the  tendency  of 
the  powder-makers,  when  suddenly  they  were  brought  to  a 
standstill  by  a  catchword,  "standard"  loading  and  "standard 
velocity." 

There  would  have  been  some  sense  in  "  standard  velocities," 
had  it  been  impossible  to  increase  velocities  without  also 
increasing  recoil ;  but  nobody  believes  that.  The  tendency 
has  not  only  been  the  other  way,  but  it  represents  the  one 
and  only  great  improvement  in  powders  that  has  been  made 
since  nitro  propellers  were  first  invented.  There  is  still  a  large 
proportion  of  recoil  due  to  the  "  blast "  after  the  shot  has  gone, 
or  the  momentum  of  lost  powder-gas.     It  is  not  nearly  abolished. 


58  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

and  is  only  reduced.  Consequently,  it  was  no  time  to  say, 
"  Now  we  have  arrived  at  perfection,  and  beyond  this  point  it 
is  a  fault  to  go,  and  consequently  we  fix  as  a  standard  1050 
foot-seconds  mean  velocity  at  20  yards  as  the  correct  velocity, 
above  and  below  which  nobody  must  attempt  to  carry  ballistics 
of  shot  guns."  That  may  suit  wholesale  manufacturers,  because 
it  is  a  standard  easy  to  accomplish  in  bulk,  but  here  is  what 
it  means  as  a  check  to  progress. 

First,  if  we  take  a  peep  at  Mr.  Griffith's  own  celebrated 
revolving  target  trials  of  just  twenty  years  ago,  we  find  that  his 
mean  velocities  of  those  trials  were  all  more  than  1050  foot- 
seconds  at  20  yards  range.  They  were  for  the  three  guns  and 
loads  used  1073,  11 24,  and  1062  foot-seconds.  But  he  has  quite 
truly  told  us  that  during  these  twenty  years  the  velocity  has 
increased  100  feet  per  second.  Consequently,  the  "standard 
loading"  sets  back  the  clock  more  than  100  foot-seconds  and 
more  than  twenty  years.  That  is  not  all :  those  beautiful  trials 
exhibited  the  fact  that  the  last  pellets  in  a  load  had  from  221 
to  300  foot-seconds  less  mean  velocity  than  the  first,  so  that 
"standard"  loading  may  mean  1050  foot-seconds  for  the  first 
pellets,  and  750  foot-seconds  for  the  last,  at  20  yards  range. 
These  trials  were  all  conducted  with  cartridges  loaded  with 
i^  oz.  of  shot.  But  years  before  that,  when  fine  grain  black 
powder  was  used,  and  gave  to  \\  oz.  of  shot  much  higher 
velocities  than  those  named  above,  Sir  Fred.  Milbank  shot 
his  728  grouse  in  the  day  with  |-  oz.,  on  the  ground  that 
the  ordinary  \\  oz.  gave  too  little  penetration — that  is,  too 
little  velocity. 

The  only  possible  arguments  left  to  put  forward  against 
increase  of  velocity  are  two  : — 

1st,  that  greater  pressure  adds  to  the  necessity  of  weight 
of  gun. 

2nd,  that  more  velocity  spoils  patterns. 

The  reply  to  the  first  is  that  the  improvement  of  powders 
and  increased  velocity  has  been  attained,  as  stated,  by  other 
means,  and  without  increasing  pressures ;  and,  second,  if 
pressures  were  increased  it  would  not  matter  to  the  shooter 


AMMUNITION  59 

who  uses  best  metal  in  his  guns,  because  it  is  quite  easy  to 
build  12  bore  shot  guns  under  5  lb.  that  are  quite  as  safe  as 
7  lb.  guns ;  and  weight  is  consequently  adjusted  by  reason  of 
the  incidence  of  recoil,  and  not  by  reason  of  the  weakness 
of  steel. 

The  second  proposition  is  equally  groundless,  and  it  is 
answered  by  the  fact  that  not  one  in  a  hundred  men  use  the 
fullest  choke  boring,  and  if  velocity  opens  out  patterns  too 
much,  ten  shillings  spent  on  a  little  more  choking,  by  recess  at 
the  muzzle,  will  bring  back  the  pattern  in  spite  of  the  tendency 
of  the  greater  velocity  to  open  it  out. 

The  means  adopted  by  the  powder-makers  to  effect  the 
improvements  referred  to  above  have  been  to  lighten  the  charge 
of  powder,  or  to  compress  more  fixed  gas  into  a  smaller  solid 
weight.  This  statement  more  particularly  applies  to  the  light 
(33  grains)  bulk  powders.  By  "  bulk  "  is  meant  those  powders 
that  fill  the  space  occupied  of  old  by  42  grain  nitro  powders  in 
the  3  drams  measurer  meant  for  black  powder. 

But  this  does  by  no  means  embrace  all  the  possible  improve- 
ments. The  26  grains,  and  concentrated,  powders  occupy  only 
about  half  the  space  of  the  bulk  powder  of  whatever  specific 
gravity,  and  consequently  the  prospect  opens  before  them  of 
making  use  of  their  80  times  power  of  expansion  in  the  barrel, 
instead  of  the  40  expansion  power  of  the  bulk  powders.  This 
is  not  as  great  a  possible  improvement  as  it  sounds,  but  it  is  a 
large  one  all  the  same.  At  present  the  coned  cases  used  for 
this  class  of  nitro  powder  bring  it  down  below  its  possibilities, 
because,  as  these  cones  stretch  under  powder-gas  pressure,  it  is 
similar  in  effect  to  the  powder  occupying  more  space  in  the 
chamber,  and  negatives  a  great  part  of  its  capacity  for  double 
expansions  of  other  powders  within  the  barrel.  At  present 
the  makers  of  condensed  powders  have  not  been  strong  enough 
to  get  gun  chambers  generally  shortened  to  suit  them,  and  thus 
they  are  condemned  to  compete  handicapped ;  but  if  we  were 
starting  to  design  guns  afresh,  and  were  not  bound  by  precedent 
and  the  necessity  of  sometimes  borrowing  cartridges  and  lending 
them,  gun  chambers  and  cartridges  would  be  shortened  to  make 


6o  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

use  of  the  possible  80,  instead  of  40,  expansions,  with  an 
accompanying  still  further  reduction  of  lost  powder  -  gas 
momentum,  or  loss  by  "blast,"  and  its  automatic  accom- 
paniment of  more  reduction  of  recoil. 

Of  course  short  cartridges  in  long  chambers  are  not  to  be 
thought  of  from  the  standpoint  of  improvement,  and  in  many 
guns  they  ball  the  shot  in  a  most  dangerous  way.  Thicker 
wadding  is  more  objectionable  than  coned  cases,  unless  it  could 
be  made  lighter  than  the  greased  felt  wad  is  now,  and  not  only 
lighter  but  less  compressible,  because  to  compress  it  is  to  hinder 
it  from  bridging  the  cone  between  the  mouth  of  the  cartridge 
and  the  barrel  proper,  and  it  also  enlarges  the  powder  chamber 
in  practice. 

Some  few  years  ago  the  cartridge-makers  and  the  gun- 
makers  came  to  an  agreement,  that  there  should  be  a  maximum 
size  for  cartridges  for  each  gauge  and  a  minimum  size  for  gun 
chambers.  This  was  very  wise  and  proper.  These  sizes  are 
well  known  to  all  gun-makers,  to  whom  they  are  important,  but 
they  have  no  interest  for  shooters,  because  the  latter  have  not 
the  instruments  to  measure  either  chambers  or  cartridges,  and 
the  usual  and  very  proper  practice  is  to  make  the  seller 
responsible,  and  return  cartridges  that  are  too  big  to  go  in  the 
chambers,  or  too  small,  so  that  they  shoot  weak,  or  burst  the 
cases,  or  both. 

Herein  lies  a  great  advantage  of  taking  your  gun-maker  into 
confidence  about  cartridges.  We  cannot,  as  a  rule,  give  bigger 
or  smaller  cases  to  fit  chambers  that  may  have  been  made,  or 
grown,  bigger  before  or  since  the  agreement  was  come  to ;  but 
if  chambers  are  rather  large  for  cartridges,  and  consequently 
shooting  is  somewhat  weak,  he  can  suggest  a  grain  or  two  of 
additional  powder  to  the  usual  charge.  It  is  the  belief  of  the 
author  that  a  gun-maker  usually  delights  in  turning  his 
customers  out  to  do  the  best  possible  work,  and  will  take  any 
trouble  to  that  end,  not  only  because  it  is  business,  but  because 
it  gives  personal  pleasure. 

Shot  sizes  are  mentioned  under  the  headings  of  the  game 
to  which  they  arc  most  fitted ;  but  although  a  slight  advantage 


AMMUNITION  6i 

can  be  had  by  using  hard  shot,  it  is  so  slight  as  to  be  scarcely 
worth  attention  from  the  marksman's  point  of  view,  and  those 
who  love  not  the  dentist  should  at  least  refrain  from  breaking 
their  own  teeth  unnecessarily. 

Until  something  better  is  invented  for  the  purpose  of  trying 
guns  and  cartridges,  strawboard  racks  and  Pettitt  pads  are  the 
only  means  open  to  the  shooter,  and  besides,  when  properly 
used,  are  the  best  means.  Both  vary  in  thickness  and  hardness, 
the  latter  according  to  the  weather.  But  every  shooter  can 
arrange  for  a  trial  against  a  gun  he  knows,  and  against  hand- 
filled  black  powder  cartridges.  Then,  if  he  uses  his  "trial 
horse"  against  the  same  pads  and  boards  as  the  other  gun, 
or  new  cartridges,  he  will  arrive  at  correct  comparative  results. 
This  is  not  only  the  most  effective  but  the  cheapest  way.  If 
strawboards  are  used,  the  first  and  last  boards  can  be  renewed 
for  each  shot.  The  chances  of  having  a  shot  pass  through  an 
already  made  shot  hole  are  too  remote  and  unimportant  to 
matter.  Then  the  way  to  assess  penetration  is  to  count  the 
shot  that  struck  the  first  board  or  sheet  of  paper,  and  the 
number  that  pierced  the  last,  arranging  the  last  in  such  a 
position  that  about  one-half  those  pellets  that  hit  the  first  paper 
also  go  through  the  last.  This  takes  the  mean  penetration  of 
the  load,  and  was  Colonel  Hawker's  method.  The  results  will 
then  read  something  like  this:  .41,  .50,  .60,  .55  of  total  shot 
through,  say,  20  sheets  of  brown  paper  Pettitt  pad. 

The  true  way  of  testing  the  energy  of  the  shot  is  by  means 
of  the  ballistic  pendulum,  but  although  the  author  has  designed 
a  more  simple  apparatus  than  the  usual  device  of  this  sort,  it  is 
not  yet  sufficiently  tried  to  warrant  its  description. 

To  the  very  few  who  load  their  own  cartridge-cases 
the  author  can  offer  no  advice  beyond  this :  the  best  cases  and 
wadding,  and  the  best  powder,  meaning  the  highest  priced,  are 
necessary,  and  not  merely  luxuries.  The  amateur  loader  has 
no  means  of  testing  powders  to  see  if  they  fluctuate,  and  he 
must  rely,  therefore,  on  the  maker  ;  and  that  very  careful  person 
will  take  the  most  trouble  over  that  for  which  he  charges  most. 
The  shooter,  in  fact,  is  not  buying  raw  material,  but  personal 


62  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

care  and  trouble.  There  is  a  possibility  of  a  professional 
loader  varying  his  method  to  suit  fluctuations  in  strength  and 
rapidity  of  powder.  He  can  do  it  by  means  of  the  turnover,  or 
by  adding  to  or  reducing  the  charge;  but  this  is  outside  the 
range  of  the  amateur's  skill.  He  would  not  know  what  was 
wanted.  Even  the  best  nitro  powders  do  vary,  batch  for 
batch,  and  also  by  reason  of  the  heat  of  the  weather  as  well  as 
by  that  of  their  storehouse. 

The  best  place  to  keep  cartridges  in  during  the  winter  is 
the  gun-room  with  a  fire,  and  in  the  summer  in  the  gun-room 
also,  if  it  is  dry  enough  not  to  require  a  fire ;  but  the  principal 
safeguard  is  to  keep  cartridges  and  their  bags  and  magazines 
out  of  the  sun  as  much  as  possible.  The  sun  will  easily  raise 
the  so-called  "  pressure  "  by  about  a  ton  per  square  inch  in  some 
cartridges.  How  much  this  may  really  be  it  is  difficult  to 
even  suggest,  but  Lieutenant  Hardcastle  has  estimated  that 
"  pressures  "  are  not  reliable  within  30  per  cent,  and  the  author 
would  have  said  by  more.  Fifty  per  cent,  added  is  a  very 
different  proportion  to  50  per  cent,  of  reduction.  In  one  case 
it  is  as  2  to  3,  and  in  the  other  case  it  is  as  2  to  I. 


THE  THEORY  OF  SHOOTING 

MANY  scientific  calculations  have  been  made  with  a  view 
to  improving  the  shooting  of  sportsmen,  or  at  least  of 
interesting  them.  Two,  which  are  in  theory  unassailable,  have 
appeared  very  often  indeed  in  the  unanswerable  form  of  figures 
and  measurements,  and  nevertheless  they  are  both  misleading, 
and  even  wrong,  in  the  crude  form  in  which  they  have  been 
left.  One  of  these  is  based  on  the  calculation  that  the  shot  and 
the  game  can  only  meet  provided  a  certain  fixed  allowance  in 
front  of  moving  game  is  given.  The  calculations  are  quite 
correct,  but  they  have  no  application  to  sport,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  they  neglect  to  calculate  the  reduction  of  the 
theoretical  allowance  in  front,  supposed  to  be  necessary,  but 
not  all  imperative  because  of  the  swing  of  the  gun.  In  other 
words,  the  gunner,  however  expert  he  may  be,  does  not  know 
exactly  where  his  gun  points  at  the  instant  the  tumbler  falls, 
let  alone  the  instant  the  shot  leaves  the  barrel.  Between  the 
instant  of  pulling  the  trigger  and  the  shot  leaving  the 
barrel  a  swinging  gun  will  have  moved  some  unknown 
distance,  and  this  represents  additional  unobserved  allowance. 
An  inch  of  this  movement  at  the  muzzle  of  the  gun 
becomes  an  allowance  of  40  inches  in  as  many  yards  of  range. 
It  will  be  necessary  to  refer  to  this  unconscious  allowance 
again  directly,  because  it  has  a  bearing  upon  the  second  oft- 
stated  proposition. 

It  is  this :  mental  perceptions  in  various  individuals  range 
from  quick  to  slow,  and  besides  this  the  muscular  action  due  to 
mental  orders  and  nerve  impulses  also  range  from  slow  to 
quick.     Both  these  well-known  facts  are  constantly  asserted  to 

63 


64  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

necessitate  an  added  allowance  in  front  of  game  by  ♦^he  slow 
individual.  In  practice,  however,  these  slow  individuals  never 
admit  the  yards  of  allowance  that  they  are  supposed  to  need  to 
allow  in  front  of  fast  crossing  game.  It  has  occurred  to  the 
author  to  question  whether  the  man  of  slow  perception  and  of 
slow  muscular  obedience  does  need  to  allow  more  than  the  quick 
individual.  Probably  it  is  exactly  the  reverse ;  and  he  has 
to  see  less  space  between  the  muzzle  and  the  game  than  the 
quicker  man  and  than  he  of  what  is  mistakenly  called  less 
personal  error. 

The  "personal  error"  seems  to  be  in  assuming  that  the  slow 
individual  does  not  subconsciously  know  his  own  speed,  and 
compensate  for  it. 

Apparently  it  is  mistaken  to  place  the  actions  of  shooting 
in  this  or  any  other  sequence  of  events.  It  is  said,  "You  see 
the  game,  you  aim,  your  eyes  tell  the  brain  your  aim  is  true, 
your  brain  orders  the  muscles  to  let  off  the  gun."  That  is 
possibly  correct  for  some  people,  but  the  author  does  not 
believe  that  any  fast  crossing  game  would  ever  be  killed  if  it 
were  so.  His  view  is  that  there  is  the  game;  your  brain  now 
instructs  two  sets  of  muscles  to  move  in  different  directions, 
one  to  move  the  gun  and  another  to  pull  the  trigger,  and  at  the 
same  time  informs  each  how  rapidly  to  act  in  order  that  left- 
hand  gun-swing  and  right  index-finger  pressure  may  arrive 
precisely  together.  This  is  what  is  called  hand  and  eye  working 
together,  but  it  should  be  hand  and  finger.  The  eye  certainly 
may  observe  whether  the  two  things  have  been  done  at  the  same 
instant  of  time,  but  when  they  have  not  there  is  no  time  for 
correction ;  all  the  eye  can  do  is  to  inform  the  brain  that  the 
swing  did  not  catch  up  before  the  gun  was  off,  or  the  reverse, 
so  that  the  brain  may  correct  the  missed  timing  for  the  next 
shot.  It  is  necessary  to  observe  that  the  finger  pressure  starts, 
as  does  the  swing  of  the  gun,  before  aim  is  completed,  and  that 
if  the  latter  were  got  before  the  order  to  pull  were  given  by  the 
brain,  it  would  be  lost  by  the  mere  continued  swing  of  the  gun 
before  the  order  could  be  executed. 

What  has  to  be  considered,  then,  is  what  appears  to  the 


THE  THEORY  OF  SHOOTING  65 

brain  at  the  instant  of  discharge.  The  quicker  the  perception 
of  things  as  they  happen,  the  more  space  will  be  observed 
between  the  muzzle  and  the  crossing  bird  as  the  gun  races 
past  the  game.  The  slow  perception  will  not  observe  that  the 
gun  has  passed  the  bird  when  the  explosion  occurs,  and  this 
clearly  accounts  for  some  good  shots  declaring  they  never  make 
any  allowance  for  crossing  game,  but  shoot  "pretty  much  at 
'em."  Of  course  they  do  nothing  of  the  sort ;  but  they  tell  you 
what  they  perceive.  They  do  not  observe  that  in  the  interval 
between  pulling  trigger  and  the  shot  leaving  the  barrel  the  gun 
has  travelled  past  the  game  very  considerably,  and  what  they 
have  observed  is  the  relative  position  of  gun  and  game  at  the 
time  the  trigger  gave  way.  For  their  class  of  shooting,  therefore, 
they  must  look  for  less  daylight  between  gun  and  game  than 
the  person  of  quick  perception,  who  sees  most  of  what  there  is 
to  observe. 

The  velocity  of  light  is  so  much  greater  than  the  velocity  01 
recoil,  that  it  may  be  questioned,  on  that  ground,  whether  this  is 
the  right  explanation,  on  the  assumption  that  only  recoil  would 
stop  the  perception  of  the  relative  positions  of  game  and  gun. 
But  were  it  so,  it  is  necessary  to  remember  that  the  velocity  of 
light  has  no  relationship  to  the  velocity  of  brain  perception 
through  the  eyes. 

But  probably  recoil  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  matter  for 
the  man  of  slow  perception,  and  to  him  the  discharge  is  done 
with  as  soon  as  the  trigger  gives  way.  It  appears,  then,  that  the 
slower  brain  perception  is  through  the  eyes,  the  less  observed 
allowance  a  swinging  gun  will  require. 

Is  it  possible  to  shoot  fast  crossing  game  without  a  swinging 
gun  ?  For  an  answer  to  this,  the  author  has  tried  to  come  back 
from  the  first  shot  to  meet  flying  game  behind  with  the  second 
barrel,  but  has  found  it  impossible  to  kill.  Here  the  swing  is  in 
the  opposite  direction  to  the  movement  of  the  game,  and  it 
invariably  carries  the  shot  behind  the  game.  Assuming  it  to  be 
possible  (as  it  is)  to  throw  up  the  gun  to  a  point  of  aim  at  which 
game  and  shot  will  intercept  each  other,  the  gun  is  mostly, 
possibly  always,  given  a  swing  in  the  direction  of  the  game's 
5 


66  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

movement  by  the  mere  act  of  presenting.  That  is  to  say,  the 
shooter  is  raising  his  gun  from  a  position  more  or  less  in  the 
direction  of  the  game  when  he  starts  the  movement,  and  as  the 
game  is  not  there  when  the  explosion  occurs  it  is  obvious  that 
the  gun  has  done  some  swinging,  possibly  unknown  to  the 
shooter. 

Much  reliance  upon  this  kind  of  racing  with  the  game  has  its 
disadvantages  as  well  as  its  advantages.  It  reduces  the  necessity 
for  accurate  judgment  of  speed  of  game  to  a  minimum.  That 
is  to  say,  if  the  gun  races  the  game,  and  gets  ahead  of  it 
unobserved  by  the  shooter,  the  pace  of  the  gun  is  set  by  the 
pace  of  the  game,  and  the  unobserved  allowance  ahead  is  also, 
and  consequently,  automatically  adjusted  by  the  game  itself — 
that  is,  by  its  angle  and  its  speed. 

But  this  method  of  shooting  takes  no  account  of  the  height 
of  the  game,  and  possibly  this  is  one  reason  why  high  pheasants 
are  so  very  difficult  to  many  excellent  marksmen  at  lower 
birds. 

The  pace  of  game  high  and  low  being  the  same,  it  is,  relatively 
to  the  movement  of  the  gun,  slower  according  as  distance 
increases.  If  the  gun  muzzle  has  to  move  5  feet  a  second  to  get 
ahead  of  game  crossing  at  20  yards  away,  it  need  move  but 
2\  feet  per  second  to  get  ahead  of  game  40  yards  away  and 
moving  at  the  same  velocity.  Consequently,  when  the  whole 
allowance  is  given  unconsciously  by  swing,  and  is  just  enough  at 
20  yards,  it  is  clear  that  the  same  swing  will  only  give  the  same 
unconscious  allowance  at  40  yards,  and  that  this  will  not  be  half 
enough  at  that  range,  where  the  pellets  are  travelling  slower  and 
have  double  the  distance  to  go. 

For  this  reason,  in  theory — and  the  author's  experience 
supports  theory  in  this  case — it  is  better  to  make  an  allowance  in 
front  of  all  game,  in  addition  to  swing,  and  to  increase  the  allow- 
ance very  much  for  long  ranges.  To  reduce  theory  to  practice : 
with  a  swing  to  the  gun  automatically  set  by  the  speed  of 
the  bird,  the  author  would  find  it  necessary  to  allow  3  yards 
ahead  of  game  at  40  yards,  whereas  the  same  game  at  the 
same  speed  would    not   have  more   than    2  feet  allowance  at 


TAKIX(;    A    Sli;i>    KACK    W  I  1  H     I  H  K    I, KM     l(H)i     \>    IHK    >Hiil     l>    llklli    SAVKS 
THK    HAl.ANCK   WMKX    IH  !•.    CAMK    flAS   I'A.^SKI)    l-AK   ()\KK   liKAli   lll-.ltikl-,   IIMNC. 

-Hor    A  1- 


THE  THEORY  OF  SHOOTING  67 

20  yards.  But  as  all  game  varies  in  speed,  and  as  all  shooters  see 
what  they  do  differently,  this  has  no  educational  value  for  any- 
one, except  so  far  as  it  sets  out  a  principle  that  has  not  hitherto 
been  dealt  with,  except  in  some  newspaper  articles — namely,  the 
principle  that  swing  regulated  automatically  by  the  pace  of  the 
bird  has  more  effect  at  short  range  than  at  long  range.  This  is 
so  whether  the  nature  of  the  swing  is  merely  to  follow  and  catch 
the  game,  or  to  race  it  and  get  past  it,  or  to  race  past  it  to  a 
selected  point  or  distance  in  front. 

To  attempt  to  bring  home  this  truth  to  those  who  do  not 
agree  with  these  remarks,  it  may  be  expedient  to  point  out  that 
they  explain  a  very  common  experience.  One  sometimes  gives 
ample  apparent  allowance  in  front  of  a  crossing  bird,  and  shoots 
well  behind  him ;  then,  with  the  second  barrel,  one  races  to  catch 
him  before  he  disappears  over  a  hedge,  fires  apparently  a  foot  or 
a  yard  before  the  game  is  caught  up,  and  nevertheless  kills 
dead. 

The  judgment  of  speed  is  not  very  important  if  one  allows 
the  speed  of  the  game  to  regulate  the  rate  of  the  swinging  gun, 
and  although  it  is  frequently  discussed  as  if  no  one  could  shoot 
well  without  a  perfect  knowledge  of  speed,  it  seems  doubtful 
whether  it  is  necessary  to  worry  about  it,  when  the  act  of  getting 
on  the  game  is  really  an  automatic  regulation  of  swinging  to  the 
movement  of  the  bird. 

But  as  there  are  very  likely  some  shooters  who  would  like  to 
be  able  to  calculate  speed  as  accurately  as  may  be,  here  is  a  plan 
which  is  never  very  much  out  for  heavy  short-winged  game,  such 
as  pheasants,  partridges,  grouse,  black  game,  and  wild  duck  of 
kinds. 

Estimate  the  height  of  the  game  at  the  moment  it  was  shot, 
then  measure,  by  stepping,  the  distance  the  dead  (not  wounded) 
bird  travels  before  it  touches  the  flat  ground.  Air  resistance  to 
the  fall  of  the  bird  will  be  practically  just  equal  to  air  resistance 
to  its  onward  movement  after  it  is  dead,  and  the  time  it  takes  to 
fall,  and  necessarily  also  to  go  forward  the  measured  distance, 
are  the  same.  The  time  taken  for  the  fall  may  be  safely 
calculated  by  the  height  in  feet  divided  by  16,  and  the  square 


68  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

root  of  the  dividend  is  the  number  of  seconds  of  the  fall.  Thus, 
if  the  bird  falls  64  feet,  then  ya-  =  4,  and  the  square  root  of  4  is 
2  seconds.  In  3  seconds  the  game  falls  48  yards,  so  that  prac- 
tically all  pheasants  take  between  2  and  3  seconds  to  fall,  or 
ought  to  do  so. 

The  velocity  the  bird  is  travelling  before  being  shot  does  not 
affect  the  time  it  takes  to  reach  the  ground,  but  wind,  with  or 
against  the  game,  slightly  alters  the  distance  it  goes  forward 
after  being  killed.  With  the  wind  the  game  will  always  be 
going  faster  than  the  air,  and  will  therefore  be  getting  air 
resistance  from  the  front,  and  the  method  only  partially 
breaks  down  when  a  heavy  wind  is  blowing  directly  against 
the  eame. 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  SHOOTING 

MR.  WALTER  WINANS  has  expressed  the  opinion  that 
the  better   a   shooter  grows   at   the   rifle   targets  the 
worse  he  becomes  at  moving  objects  with   the  rifle  and  gun. 
But  it  is  probable  that  all  good  shooting  at  moving  objects  is 
based    upon    a   beginning   of  steady  alignments.     Those  who 
believe  that  shooting  at  flying  game  is  to  be  well  learnt  before 
still  objects  can  be  accomplished  seem  to  the  author  to  neglect 
the  first  principles,  and  would  run  before  they  can  walk.     There 
is  this  to  be  considered :  that  one  often  does  get,  even  in  grouse 
and  partridge  driving,  marks  that  are  exactly  equivalent  to  still 
objects.     That  is  to  say,  they  are  coming  perfectly  straight  at 
the  gun.     Is  one  to  let  them  off  without  shooting  quite  straight 
because  one  has  been  taught  not  to  align  ?     There  is  no  doubt 
the  best  shots   do  align  for  the  very  fastest  crossing  game  if 
there  is  time  to  do  it ;  and  the  belief  of  the  author  is  that  a 
man   cannot  be  really  quite  first-rate  unless  he  can  shoot  in 
every  style  as  occasion  requires.     That  is  to  say,  he  will  be 
able  upon  occasion,  when  circumstances  and  time  admit  ot  but 
a  brief  sight  of  a  crossing  bird  between  the  branches  of  fir  trees, 
to  throw  his  gun  ahead  to  a  point,  as  he  thinks,  and  tries  to  do, 
without  swing,  and  will  be  able  to  kill  his  game.     The  author 
has  occasionally  risen  to  such  success  himself,  but  only  when 
he  has  not  been  trying  to  do  it,  but  has  grown  up  to  it,  out  of 
the  more  certain  method  of  consciously  swinging  past  the  bird 
to  a  point  in  space  ahead,  and  pulling  trigger  as  the  alignment 
was  getting  to  the  spot,  and  without  checking  the  gun.     In  the 
first-named  style  of  shooting,  when  the  kill  comes  off,  there  is 
probably  always   swing,  by   reason   of  the   gun   being  put   up 


70  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

from  a  position  pointing  much  behind  the  bird,  so  that  the 
swing  occurs  as  the  gun  is  going  home  to  the  shoulder,  and  it 
is  not  checked  when  the  trigger  is  pulled,  simply  because  no 
swing  can  be  checked  instantly.     By  this  method  of  finding  the 
place  and  shooting  at  it,  the  author  can  manage  rabbits  jumping 
across  rides — that  is,  when  he  manages  to  kill  them  at  all ;  but 
he  prefers  to  handle  winged  game  by  the  slower  and  surer 
method,   which,    however,   he   would    abandon    for   the   better 
style  if  he  could.     But  the  ability  to  be  quick  in  this  better  style 
is  not  his  for  a  permanency,  it  only  comes  sometimes,  when 
there  is   not   time   to   take  game   with  a  conscious   swing   of 
the  gun.     The  late  Mr.  A.  Stuart  Wortley,  who  was  one  of  the 
best  game-driving  shots  of  his  time,  has  told  us  in  one  of  his 
books  that  he  could  not  hit  anything  until  he  started  to  shut 
one  eye  and  align.     Later,  he  thought  first  aiming  at  a  bird, 
and  then  swinging  forward  of  it,  was  slow,  and  making  two 
operations    of    one.      Lord    Walsingham    has   assented    to    a 
description  of  shooting  in  which  the  "racing"  of  the  bird  with 
the  gun  was  the  principal  feature,  and  Lord  de  Grey  has  been 
watched  to  put  his  gun  up,  try  to  get  on,  and,  failing,  take  it 
down  without  shooting ;  all  of  which  tends  to  show  that  align- 
ment and  swing  are  the  two  necessary  factors  in  shooting,  not 
necessarily  alignment  of  the  game,  but  generally  of  a  moving 
point  at  the  end  of  a  space  in  front  of  the  game.     Mr.  F.  E.  R. 
Fryer  is  very  clear  about  the  advantages  of  swing,  and  also 
allowance   in    front.     As   he   is   as  quick  a  shot  as  ever  was 
deliberate,  and  more  deadly  than  those  in  a  hurry,  there  can 
be  no  better  proof  that  swing  itself  is  not  necessarily  accom- 
panied by  any  delay.     But  there  are   two  or  more  kinds   of 
swing,    and    it   does    not    necessarily   mean    what    Mr.    Stuart 
Wortley  implied.     It  is  not  always,  or  often  possibly,  a  jerk 
after  getting  on  the  game,  neither  is  it  a  following  round   of 
the  game,  but  in  its  best  form  it  is  probably  mostly  done  before 
the  gun  touches  the  shoulder,  and  is  not  stopped  by  contact 
with  the  shoulder,  or  by  pulling  the  trigger.      It  is  not  sup- 
posed that  those  who  can  sometimes  bring  off  this  ideal  style — 
which,  in  intention,  is  finding  the  right  place  in  front  of  the 


I 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  SHOOTING  71 

game  to  shoot  at — always  find  this  style  possible  to  them.  At 
least,  not  invariably  possible  for  very  high  and  very  fast  game ; 
and  the  author  believes  that  the  only  way  to  it  for  a  novice  is 
to  begin  by  aligning,  go  on  by  aligning,  and  end  by  aligning ; 
for  that  is  really  what  this  ideal  style  of  shooting  amounts  to. 
It  is  aligning  a  spot,  which  bears  no  mark,  ahead  of  game,  and 
doing  it  as  the  gun  comes  home  to  the  shoulder,  and  with  a 
double  movement,  while  it  swings  in  the  direction  the  game  is 
going.  That  is  to  say,  it  is  the  quickest  and  most  accurate 
alignment  of  all.  That  is  the  outcome  of  all  the  author  has 
been  able  to  learn  of  the  m.ethods  of  crack  shots,  confirmed  by 
his  own  longer  but  smaller  experience  with  the  shot  gun. 

These  remarks  have  appeared  necessary  by  reason  of  the 
large  quantity  of  bad  advice  that  has  been  given.  Those  who 
have  said  that  no  alignment  was  necessary,  because  it  took 
too  much  time,  seem  to  have  a  notion  that  the  gun  has  to 
move  fast  because  the  game  does  so.  But  a  muzzle  move- 
ment at  the  rate  of  3  or  4^  feet  a  second,  or  two,  to  three 
miles  an  hour  (less  than  the  space  of  an  ordinary  walk),  will 
out-race  any  reasonable  bird  at  30  yards  range,  even  if  he  is 
travelling  90  miles  an  hour,  so  that  it  is  not  pace,  as  such,  that 
is  difficult. 

Calculated  allowance  in  front  of  game,  and  the  automatic 
allowance  for  speed  by  reason  of  swinging  with  the  bird,  have 
been  touched  upon  already.  The  worst  objections  to  giving 
a  little  too  much  allowance  ahead  are,  that  only  a  part  of  that 
proportion  of  the  load  that  should  hit  the  game  does  reach  it, 
and  that  part  is  the  weakest  of  the  load,  or,  at  any  rate,  the 
last  pellets.  Another  is,  that  any  swerve  of  the  game  ensures 
a  complete  miss,  and  it  is  swerving  of  fast  game  that  causes 
its  difficulty  much  more  than  its  pace.  This  supposed  necessity 
for  being  so  very  quick  because  of  the  great  pace  of  game  has 
spoilt  more  shots  than  anything  else.  There  generally  is  plenty 
of  time  to  be  deliberate,  to  aim  at  the  exact  spot  while  moving 
the  gun  at  least  fast  enough  to  keep  ahead  of  the  game,  and  it 
is  necessary  to  remember  that  the  best  shots  are  the  quickest 
only  because  they  are  most  deliberate,  and  get  "  on  the  spot " 


72  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

before  firing,  or,  to  be  more  correct,  know  that  they  are  about 
to  get  there  by  the  time  their  fingers  can  take  effect  on  the 
trigger.  Mr.  Fryer  before  mentioned  says  that  he  has  both 
to  swing  and  make  allowance  too  for  the  very  fast  high 
birds. 

Probably  the  best  way  to  avoid  stopping  the  gun  as  one 
pulls  trigger,  or  waiting  to  see  that  aim  is  correct  before 
letting  off,  is  to  make  a  rule  to  pull  just  before  the  right 
alignment  is  reached.  It  will  be  reached  by  the  time  the  shot 
leave  the  gun. 

There  is  no  reason  to  say  that  for  handling  a  pair  ot  guns 
instinctively  a  loader  must  be  trained  by  the  shooter  himself, 
because  there  are  so  many  ways  of  giving  and  taking  guns. 
Besides  this,  shooting  far  off  with  the  first  barrel  for  grouse, 
and  as  soon  as  partridges  top  the  fence,  are  essentials  to 
getting  in  four  barrels  at  a  brood,  or  covey,  as  the  case  may 
be.  Moreover,  it  is  generally  a  case  of  kill  or  miss  in  front 
of  the  shooter,  and  wound  or  kill  behind  him. 

Shooting  schools  cannot  help  a  shooter  to  learn  to  kill  curling 
pheasants,  swerving  partridges,  wrenching  grouse,  or  zigzagging 
snipe,  but  they  can  teach  the  quick  firing  and  changing  of  guns. 
And  to  one  not  in  practice  it  is  this  quick  firing  that  puts  a 
shooter  out  of  touch  with  gun  and  game,  much  more  readily 
than  swerve,  wrench,  zigzag,  or  curl. 

All  the  talk  of  the  speed  of  driven  game  making  it  difficult 
has  frightened  and  unnerved  many  a  beginner  at  such  birds, 
but  it  is  merely  the  echo  of  what  was  said  before  shooters  had 
learnt  that  they  had  to  swing  and  aim  ahead  as  well.  To  talk 
of  speed  of  game  now,  as  if  there  was  some  mystery  in  it,  is 
merely  to  unnerve  more  disciples  of  Diana.  When  once  the 
gunner  knows  where  he  has  got  to  shoot  for  the  driven  bird 
(in  the  singular),  the  shot  is  much  easier  than  the  goiiig-away 
game,  because  the  longer  you  wait  in  one  case  the  worse 
chance  you  have,  and  in  the  other  the  better  chance  you  have. 
If  the  shooter  thinks  differently,  he  can  turn  round  in  the 
grouse  butt  every  time,  instead  of  shooting  his  game  coming; 
but  he  will  soon  give  that   up,  because  he  will  find    his    gun 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  SHOOTING  73 

is   not  equal  to  the   greater  requirements  of  the  going-away 
game. 

After  writing  the  remarks  above,  it  seemed  to  be  the  proper 
course  to  consult  some  of  those  excellent  marksmen  who  are 
discussed  by  everybody.  Consequently,  the  author  bethought 
him  of  the  article  he  had  written  for  Bailey's  Magazine  on  the 
twelve  best  shots,  and  decided  to  ask  for  the  views  of  a  few 
of  those  expert  marksmen  who  had,  by  the  votes  of  others, 
come  out  as  best.  He  was  impelled  to  this  course  not  with 
any  desire  to  have  his  own  views  corroborated  by  such  good 
authority,  but  in  order,  if  possible,  with  the  greater  authority, 
to  correct  what  to  him  appear  very  erroneous  notions  so  often 
seen  in  print.  As  nobody  can  assist  those  who  are  perfect 
already,  it  is  clear  that  the  novice  is  the  person  who  can 
benefit  by  a  discussion  of  the  subject.  For  this  reason  it  was 
not  so  much  to  inquire  how  crack  shots  shoot  now,  as  how 
they  learnt  to  shoot,  that  was  the  intention  of  these  inquiries. 
Often  have  been  put  forward  the  methods  of  shooters  after 
they  have  become  expert,  which  is  about  as  helpful  as  telling 
a  schoolboy,  "  There  is  W.  G.,  go  and  imitate  him  with  your 
cricket  bat."  The  author's  own  fault  of  delay  and  the 
limitation  of  space  has  rendered  it  necessary  to  compress  this 
information  into  very  small  space. 

After  disowning  any  more  connection  with  the  twelve  best 
than  a  hundred  others  have  an  equal  right  to,  Mr.  R.  H. 
Rimington  Wilson  was  good  enough  to  reply  to  some  leading 
questions  in  much  this  way: — 

In  shooting  at  fast  crossing  game  he  looks  at  the  place  he 
is  going  to  shoot,  not  at  the  game. 

He  admits  that  the  "  ideal "  best  form  in  shooting  would  be 
to  bring  up  the  gun  in  the  nearest  way,  without  swing,  and  to 
shoot  to  the  right  place,  but  he  questions  whether  it  can  be 
done  for  high,  or  fast,  wide  birds.  He  can  do  it  for  near 
grouse,  just  as  the  writer  has  explained  that  he  does  it  for 
rabbits.  But  Mr.  Wilson  is  convinced  that  for  far-off  fast 
game  you  must  "swing."  He  once  questioned  Lord  de  Grey 
on  how  he  shot,  and   the  reply  was  that  this  great  performer 


74  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

took  every  advantage  the  game  gave  time  for.  That  is  to 
say,  he  only  shot  quick,  by  the  throwing  up  and  firing  without 
swing,  when  there  was  no  time  for  swing. 

For  pheasants,  Mr.  Wilson  prefers  to  get  behind  them  and 
race  his  gun  to  the  front  without  stopping  the  gun  to  inquire 
whether  he  has  got  in  front,  because  he  finds  that  such  a 
stop  means  shooting  behind.  But  although  this  is  his  plan, 
he  questioned  whether  it  was  right,  because  when  he  has 
occasionally  shot  from  a  deep  gorge,  where  there  was  no 
time  for  this  method,  he  has  found  the  game  come  down, 
just  as  he  has  when  a  quick  second  barrel  has  been  sent 
after  a  first  failure.  The  author  thinks  this  only  emphasises 
the  use  and  value  of  swing ;  because  in  shooting  at  a  pheasant 
crossing  a  deep  gorge  the  very  act  of  putting  up  the  gun  to 
the  shoulder  constitutes  a  swing  in  the  direction  the  game  is 
going.  It  is  probably  the  fastest  of  all  swinging,  and  the  one 
to  which  the  shooter  is  least  able  to  apply  the  muscular  stop. 
This,  then,  represents  what  some  crack  shots  do  now.  But 
the  most  important  thing  to  know  is  how  did  they  arrive  at 
that  point?  Did  they  begin  by  snapping  at  the  place  where 
the  bird  was  going  to  be  when  their  shot  arrived,  or  did 
they  begin  by  aligning,  and  so  grow  into  the  mastery  of 
the  gun? 

The  former  has  been  the  fashionable  method  to  talk  of 
in  the  press,  but  Mr.  Rimington  Wilson  is  very  emphatic 
on  the  necessity  of  the  rifle  like  aligning  as  a  start.  The 
author  was  very  pleased  to  hear  this,  because  it  is  one  of 
those  points  on  which  he  has  always  disagreed  with  what 
may  be  called  the  written  schooling  of  the  shot  gun.  We 
have  all  heard  of  the  man  who  never  would  go  in  the  water 
until  he  had  learnt  to  swim,  and  probably  the  would-be  crack 
shot  who  wishes  to  begin  at  the  end  will  make  no  more 
progress  than  the  would-be  swimmer. 

Mr.  Wilson  does  not  believe  in  choke  bores.  He  thinks 
that  the  8  or  9  yards  of  distance  they  increase  the  range 
is  paid  for  very  dearly  at  all  near  ranges.  Another  point  made 
by  this  good  sportsman  is  contrary  altogether  to  accepted  ideas. 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  SHOOTING  75 

He  does  not  believe  driven  grouse  harder  to  kill  than  grouse 
shot  over  dogs,  and  would  rather  back  himself  to  kill  con- 
secutive numbers  of  the  former  than  the  latter.  Here,  again, 
Mr.  Wilson  is  in  agreement  with  the  author,  who  has  often  given 
this  opinion  in  the  press,  and  has,  moreover,  supported  it  by- 
pointing  to  the  wretched  scoring  of  double  rises  at  the  pigeon 
traps,  even  at  25  yards  and  by  the  best  pigeon  shots  in 
Europe.  Pigeons,  again,  are  much  more  responsive  to  lead 
than  a  right  and  left  grouse  at  35  yards  rise  in  October. 
The  grouse  spring  twice  as  quick  as  the  pigeon.  But  Mr. 
Wilson  was  not  speaking  of  the  October  grouse,  but  of  average 
grouse  shooting  over  dogs  and  average  driving.  Probably 
we  all  agree  that  there  is  an  occasional  impossible  in  almost 
every  kind  of  shooting. 

Another  point  that  Mr.  Wilson  has  assisted  the  author  to 
place  in  its  true  light  is  that  his  big  bags  are  by  no  means 
made  for  their  own  sake,  but  simply  because  the  grouse  are  on 
the  moor  and  his  is  the  only  way  to  get  them.  To  hunt  for 
grouse  in  driblets  would  be  to  drive  most  of  them  away  never 
to  be  shot.  They  are  so  wild  that  they  have  to  be  broken  up 
by  the  severest  treatment,  and  as  one  man  could  drive  them  all 
away,  so  it  takes  an  army  of  flankers  and  beaters  to  keep  them 
on  the  moor  during  the  driving  days. 

Mr.  Wilson  shoots  with  Boss  single-trigger  guns,  and, 
contrary  to  expectation  and  ideas,  one  of  these  single  triggers  is 
often  made  to  do  duty  in  a  day's  tramp  after  a  couple  of 
woodcock  or  a  small  bag  of  snipe. 


FORM  IN  GAME  SHOOTING— I 

"  I  ^ORM,"  like  "taste,"  is  a  very  definite  thing  to  every  one 
X  of  us,  but  probably  no  two  persons  have  ever  quite  agreed 
about  either.  Shooting  "form  "  is  just  as  definite:  we  know  for 
ourselves  what  is,  and  what  is  not,  good  form  instantly ;  but 
again  it  is  not  an  easy  thing  to  agree  upon  in  the  abstract, 
although  in  practice  when  two  men  discuss  another  they  will 
not  be  unlikely  to  agree  that  he  is  either  "  good  form  "  or  "  bad 
form."  There  appears  to  be  no  half-way  house — it  is  always 
either  good  or  bad.  Form  as  it  is  generally  understood  has  not 
much  to  do  with  success,  but  is  more  a  matter  of  appearance. 
If  a  shooter  at  a  covert  side  planted  his  gun  at  his  shoulder 
when  the  drive  began  and  so  kept  it  until  a  pheasant  came  over 
into  line,  and  then  he  let  off,  his  form  would  not  be  either  good 
or  bad — it  would  be  too  uncommon  for  either  ;  too  ridiculous  to 
be  seen,  in  fact ;  but  it  is  precisely  that  which  pigeon  shooters 
and  clay  bird  men  mostly  adopt.  It  is  outside  the  question  of 
game  killing  altogether. 

No  kind  of  shooting  requires  more  sharpness  of  eye  than 
grouse  driving,  and  when  the  gun  is  at  the  shoulder,  engaged 
with  one  bird,  we  all  know  how  easy  it  is  for  others  to  slip  by 
unobserved,  and  then  we  get  just  as  bad  a  reputation  as  if  we 
had  blazed  away  and  missed. 

Obviously,  quickness  of  perception  has  much  infiuence  on 
success,  but  whether  it  has  anj-thing  to  do  with  form  is  doubtful. 
It  is  curious  that  what  we  all  agree  is  the  best  possible  style  for 
the  second  barrel  is  the  worst  possible  for  the  first.  The  man 
who  takes  down  his  gun  between  the  double  shot  is  a  fumbler, 
unless  he  has  to  turn  round  ;  but  the  man  who  keeps  his  gun  at 


FORM  IN  GAME  SHOOTING  'j'j 

the  shoulder  for  the  first  shot  is  worse.  The  reason  it  is  bad 
form  in  one  case  and  good  in  another  may  not  be  quite  the 
same  as  why  it  leads  to  success  in  one  case  and  not  in  the  other. 
Perhaps  an  appearance  of  ease  has  some  near  relationship  to 
good  form,  and  ease  itself  has  a  nearer  affinity  to  success  with 
the  gun.  It  would  tire  out  the  arms  to  practise  in  game 
shooting  the  pigeon  shooter's  methods,  on  whose  arms  the  strain 
in  the  "  present "  position  lasts  only  until  he  calls  "  pull."  The 
strain  in  game  shooting  would  last  long,  and  it  would  certainly 
happen  that  when,  at  last,  game  did  come  within  range,  the 
arms  of  the  shooter  would  be  too  cramped  to  deal  properly  with 
it.  "  Form,"  therefore,  appears  in  this  instance  to  have  some 
relationship  to  success.  But  this  is  far  from  being  always 
so.  The  author  remembers  one  case  of  a  young  man  who  did 
not  kill  much,  but  of  whom  it  was  said  it  was  more  pleasant  to 
see  him  miss  than  to  see  others  kill.  This  was  in  shooting  over 
dogs,  when  good  style  greatly  depended  upon  "  wind  "  and 
"  stamina"  to  get  over  and  shoot  from  any  rough  foothold. 

There  is  "  form  "  in  walking  also,  and  when  stamina  counts 
there  can  be  no  good  style  in  shooting  without  good  easy 
walking.  Look  at  the  different  angles  of  body  in  which  men 
go  up  and  come  down  hills.  In  the  ascent  some  people  bend 
their  backs  over  their  foremost  toes,  and  progress,  truly,  but 
they  have  to  "  right "  themselves  when  the  flush  occurs,  and 
before  they  have  done  it  the  bird  has  flown  20  yards. 
Again,  in  going  down  hill  some  men  throw  back  their  bodies, 
and  if  they  have  suddenly  to  stop  they  again  have  to  "  right  " 
themselves  before  they  can  shoot  with  success. 

But  there  is  something  worse  than  bad  shooting  style,  there 
is  bad  sporting  form ;  and  com.ing  down  hill  often  brings  it 
obviously  to  the  man  who  is  walking  behind,  and  sees  the 
leading  man's  gun  carried  on  the  shoulder,  pointing  dead  at  the 
pit  of  the  follower's  stomach.  That  cannot  be  avoided  when 
the  gun  is  carried  on  the  shoulder  in  Indian  file;  but  it  never 
ought  to  be  so  carried  then,  and  in  the  writer's  opinion,  at 
least,  is  a  deadly  disregard  of  "good  form."  In  this  case 
probably  there  will  be  no  disagreement  by  any  who  from  this 


78  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

cause  have  ever  felt  their  "  hearts  in  their  mouths."  Guns  can  be 
jarred  off,  and  the  rough  ground  on  a  moorland  down-hill  path 
often  occasions  very  sudden  jars. 

There  are  other  shooters  who  always  seem  to  be  at  the 
ready,  whether  they  are  going  up  hill  or  down ;  whether  they 
are  jumping  from  peat  hag  to  peat  hag;  or,  in  the  bogs,  from 
one  rush  clump  to  another,  to  save  themselves  from  sinking  in 
the  intervening  soft  ground.  Balance  has  a  great  deal  to  do 
with  it,  and  some  there  are  who  can  shoot  straight  even  when  the 
foothold  is  rotten  and  is  giving  way  under  them.  It  is  clear 
that  good  form  requires  that  the  performer  should  be  able  to 
shoot  from  any  position  the  rise  happens  to  find  him  in.  If  he 
must  get  the  left  foot  forward  and  the  weight  of  the  body  upon 
it,  he  will  not  be  as  quick  as  others  who  can  get  off  their  guns 
no  matter  where  their  feet  may  happen  to  be. 

This  seems  to  be  all  a  matter  of  balance,  and  the  nearer  we 
imitate  cat-like  equilibrium,  and  not  only  keep  our  heads  upper- 
most, but  keep  them  cool  in  all  circumstances,  the  more  surely 
shall  we  get  our  guns  off  at  the  right  moment. 

The  latest  phase  of  shooting  is  to  make  it  as  easy  as  possible 
to  accomplish  the  difficult.  Paradoxically,  we  have  our  boarded 
floor  in  our  grouse  butts,  racks  to  keep  the  guns  off  the  peat, 
and  shelves  upon  which  to  distribute  our  cartridges,  and  we 
place  our  grouse  butts  to  favour  the  guns.  Then,  having  made 
everything  as  easy  as  possible  for  the  sportsman,  we  now 
attempt  to  make  the  birds  as  hard  to  kill  as  wings  and  the 
wind  can  make  them.  We  send  over  the  pheasants  as  far  out 
of  reach  as  we  can  make  them  fly ;  we  take  particular  care  to 
send  the  grouse  down  wind  if  we  can ;  and  when  we  have  got 
our  guns  swinging  yards  in  front  of  the  streaks  of  brown 
lightning,  then  we  are  especially  pleased  if  we  can  bring  off  an 
up-wind  drive  in  which  the  birds  can  just,  and  only  just,  beat 
up  against  the  gale,  and  so  defeat  the  guns  again  by  the  new 
variation  of  flight ;  one  in  which  any  sort  of  lead  on  the  birds, 
any  kind  of  swing,  will  have  no  other  effect  than  shooting  yards 
in  front  of  the  game,  and  perhaps  in  turning  it  back  to  fly  over 
the  drivers'  heads  and  miles  down  wind  beyond. 


FORM  IN  GAME  SHOOTING  79 

Some  of  the  most  killing  shooters  are  those  who  need  ample 
time;  those  who  get  on  their  game  100  yards  away,  come 
with  it  as  it  approaches,  then  jerk  forward  and  pull  trigger  at 
the  instant,  and  never  require  to  look  round  to  see  if  their  bird 
is  dead — they  know  it  is.  The  critic  may  think  this  terrible 
slow  business ;  and  so  it  is.  What,  he  will  ask,  would  happen 
if  four  came  abreast  and  the  gunner  wants  all  that  time  for  one 
bird  ?  The  critic's  opinion  would  be  just  if  he  watched  and  saw 
that  the  slow  and  sure  performer  did  not,  in  fact,  have  time  to 
deal  with,  let  us  say,  two  pheasants  abreast  without  turning 
round.  But  to  assume  that  a  shooter  cannot  be  quick  because 
he  is  slow  when  quickness  is  not  required,  assumes  too  much. 
The  "  bang — bang,"  in  spite  of  expectations,  may  be  so  quick, 
from  the  apparently  slow  and  sure  man,  that  both  birds,  coming 
together,  turn  over  and  race  each  other  through  the  air  to  the 
ground  not  10  yards  apart. 

But  it  is  not  good  style,  this  poking  and  following ;  it  may 
be  very  admirable  bag  -  making,  and  is  so  when  the  quick 
second  barrel  just  described  is  added,  but  not  when  each  barrel 
seems  to  require  equally  long  to  get  off.  But  it  is  not  pretty ; 
it  cannot  by  any  stretch  of  imagination,  even  in  the  best  built 
and  most  graceful  of  men  or  women  performers,  be  regarded  as 
good  style.  The  gun  that  goes  up  to  the  spot  and  is  off  the 
instant  it  touches  the  shoulder  represents  the  best  of  good  style. 
But  the  author  doubts  whether  it  always  means  the  most 
success  in  killing.  At  any  rate,  the  highest  exponents  of  the 
art  do  not  invariably  adopt  this  plan ;  probably  when  the  top 
man  is  at  the  top  of  his  form  he  can  shoot  in  this  way,  with  as 
great  success  as  he  can  in  any  other :  but  that  is  the  point. 
Who  is  invariably  at  the  top  of  his  form  ?  The  writer  would 
back  a  great  shot  to  disguise  the  lack  of  it  from  everyone  but 
himself  at  any  time, — him  he  cannot  deceive, — he  knows  in 
his  heart  that  sometimes  he  is  a  fumbler,  but  nevertheless  one 
who  has  such  mastery  over  the  many  manners  of  shooting,  that 
if  he  cannot  shoot  to  the  right  spot  in  one  way  he  will  assuredly 
be  able  to  do  it  in  another,  provided  he  has  a  bit  more  time. 
At  the  top  of  his  form  he  will  be  aware  that  he  can  rise  to  an)^ 


8o  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

occasion ;  and  the  less  time  he  has,  the  more  brilliant  will  be  his 
work,  the  less  time  he  will  require.  He  will  be  able  to  bring 
tall  pheasants  down,  even  those  that  only  show  6  feet  through 
the  gaps  in  the  fir  trees,  with  as  much  certainty  as  if  he  had 
them  outside  and  began  his  aim  lOO  yards  away.  But  that 
represents  his  very  best ;  he  cannot  do  it  every  day,  who- 
ever he  may  be,  and  whatever  reputation  he  may  have  to 
sustain  him  and  to  be  sustained. 

At  covert  side  it  is  difficult  to  be  always  quite  awake ;  the 
first  few  birds  may  be  slovenly  taken,  and  so  the  shooter  may 
go  on  until  a  difficulty  rouses  him  to  exertion,  and  he  becomes 
fully  awake  without  recognising  the  process  of  arousing.  In 
grouse  shooting  over  dogs  the  same  differences  of  form  are 
seen,  and  others  also.  One  shooter  puts  up  his  gun  at  the  bird 
fluttering  at  his  feet,  waits  until  it  gets  30  yards  away,  and 
kills  it  dead,  and  he  may  be  quick  enough  with  the  second 
barrel.  Another  waits  with  his  gun  down  until  the  birds  are  a 
proper  distance  away,  then  his  "  crack  —  crack "  takes  the 
farther  off  bird  with  the  first  barrel  and  the  nearer  next,  and 
they  tumble  on  top  of  each  other.  The  one  is  "  form,"  the  other 
is  equally  good  bag-filling ;  but  then  these  are  not  the  days  of 
pot-hunting,  and  the  difference  between  the  two  methods  is  as 
great  as  between  the  flint  and  steel  and  the  modern  single 
trigger. 

There  are  more  differences  than  the  mere  art  of  killing,  and 
the  manner  of  its  doing.  In  walking  up  to  a  dog's  point,  for 
instance,  the  sportsman  and  the  mere  gunner  proclaim  their 
different  "  forms "  as  wide  as  the  poles  apart.  The  one  walks 
like  the  crack  man  across  country  rides,  wide  of  the  "dogs," 
perhaps  one  will  be  25  to  35  yards  to  one  side  or  other; 
another  man  may  walk  right  at  the  dog  and  level  with 
his  head  as  he  draws  on,  until  perhaps  he  consequently  loses 
the  scent ;  or  turns  and  rodes  the  birds  right  between  the 
gunner's  legs,  or  would  if  he  opened  them  and  failed  to  get  out 
of  the  way.  In  such  circumstances  the  dog  needs  no  help  in 
pointing  out  bad  form  in  sportsmanship,  although  he  will  not 
pass  an  opinion  on  gunning.     The  dogs  that  turned  tail  and 


FORM  IN  GAME  SHOOTING  8i 

went  home,  because  of  the  frequent  missing,  existed,  it  is  said, 
in  the  early  part  of  last  century.  But  in  those  days  they  had 
not  instituted  spring  field  trials,  in  which  dogs  do  their  work  as 
well  as  in  the  shooting  season,  and  in  the  total  absence  of  the 
gun  and  the  slaying  of  game. 


FORM   IN   GAME   SHOOTING— II 

THE  manner  in  which  various  shooters  hold  their  guns, 
or  rather  the  position  of  the  left  hand,  has  been 
elevated  to  the  dignity  of  a  shooter's  creed  almost.  It  is  not 
so  important  as  is  supposed.  It  is  merely  a  fashion,  which 
changes  with  generations  in  England,  and  has  never  assumed 
importance  out  of  our  very  little  island.  The  fashion  at  the 
present  time  is  to  push  forward  the  barrel  hand  almost  if 
not  quite  as  far  as  it  will  reach,  whereas  two  generations  back 
the  fashionable  shooter  for  the  most  part  placed  his  hand  in 
front  of  and  upon  the  trigger  guard,  and  although  a  beginner 
now  who  did  so  would  be  told  that  he  would  never  shoot, 
the  author  has  seen  as  good  work  done  by  those  who  adopted 
that  method  as  he  ever  expects  to  see. 

The  forward  hand  was  an  outcome  of  pigeon  shooting, 
like  the  very  straight  stock.  The  first  can  be  theoretically 
defended  by  those  who  do  not  require  to  swing  with  their 
game,  just  as  the  over  straight  stock  is  a  good  expedient  for 
shooting  a  little  more  over  a  rising  pigeon  than  the  unassisted 
intention  of  the  shooter  would  accomplish. 

The  method  of  pushing  out  the  left  arm  may  be  good  for 
some  people  and  bad  for  others.  There  is  not  the  slightest 
doubt  that  there  are  not  only  individuals  who  do  best  with 
cither  plan,  but  that  different  methods  of  shooting  arc  each 
most  suitable  to  different  individuals. 

Individuals  may  be  divided  into  those  who  have  long 
arms  and  narrow  shoulders,  and  those  who  have  short  arms 
and  are  wide  between  the  shoulders.  The  former  class  have 
much  more  room  for  play  with  three  sides  of  the  triangle  (of 

82 


FORM  IN  GAME  SHOOTING  83 

gun,  left  arm,  and  width  of  body),  always  kept  at  nearly  the 
same  length,  than  have  the  short-armed,  wide-chested  men, 
who,  in  swinging  the  gun  a  greater  degree  to  the  right  than 
they  turn  the  body,  increase  the  necessity  for  one  long  side 
to  the  angle  much  more  than  the  others  do.  But  the  hand 
holding  the  barrel  is  not  a  fixture,  and  can  slide  down  to  the 
fore  end  as  the  necessity  for  the  long  left  arm  increases  by 
swinging  to  the  right.  This  is  obviously  the  Prince  of  Wales' 
method.  However,  when  the  swing  round  to  the  right  is 
very  far,  the  position  of  the  fore  end  stops  the  hand  at  a 
certain  point. 

But  the  various  manners  of  shooting  also  seem  to  necessitate 
two  different  methods  of  holding  with  the  left  hand.  Much 
has  been  said  about  the  necessity  for  holding  well  forward, 
but  the  reasons  advanced  in  support  of  this  method  do  not  bear 
examination  by  the  light  of  physics.  It  has  been  urged  that 
the  outstretched  arm  properly  relieves  the  trigger  hand  from 
the  necessity  of  assisting  in  the  aim.  It  is  doubtful  whether 
it  should,  and  it  is  quite  certain  it  does  not,  relieve  the  trigger 
hand,  but  on  the  contrary  throws  more  work  upon  it.  The 
proof  of  this  is  very  easy.  Let  the  gun  be  grasped  in  the 
centre  of  gravity  by  the  left  hand  and  presented,  the  trigger 
hand  being  unemployed.  It  will  be  found  a  difficult  but  a 
possible  operation.  Then  shift  the  left  hand  up  the  barrel  as 
far  as  it  will  go,  and  try  to  bring  the  gun  up  from  the  "  ready  " 
to  the  "  present."  This  will  be  found  much  more  difficult,  and 
probably  impossible.  Obviously,  then,  the  outstretched  arm  is 
not  the  way  to  hold  a  gun  if  the  left  arm  is  to  do  the  pushing 
and  pulling  about.  This  reason,  which  has  been  very  much 
relied  upon,  breaks  down  entirely ;  but  that  is  not  to  say 
that  the  forward  hand  is  wrong,  but  only  that  its  advantages 
are  but  little  understood,  although  they  are  fully  appreciated. 

In  order  to  present  a  gun  at  a  point  of  aim  that  is  still, 
probably  the  extended  arm  is  always  the  best,  whether  the 
point  of  aim  is  a  point  in  front  of  fast  crossing  game,  or  a 
motionless  object,  or  a  straight-away  bird.  This  can  be  sup- 
ported by  another  very  simple  experiment.     The  gun  presented 


84  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

at  a  point  is  much  more  apt  to  "wobble"  than  when  it  is 
intentionally  kept  moving  in  any  one  direction.  One  of  its 
worst  *'  wobbles "  is  a  drop  of  the  muzzle  at  the  instant  the 
trigger  is  pulled.  It  is  caused  by  sympathetic  action  of  the 
muscles.  In  order  to  avoid  "  wobble  "  of  any  kind,  it  is  best 
to  hold  the  hands  as  far  on  either  side  of,  or  rather  in  front 
and  behind,  the  centre  of  gravity  as  possible.  To  try  this, 
let  the  gun  be  presented  and  aimed  without  the  butt  resting 
on  the  shoulder ;  first,  with  the  hands  in  the  usual  positions ; 
second,  with  one  hand  on  either  side  to  right  and  left  of  the 
centre  of  gravity — that  is,  just  in  front  of  the  breech.  The 
tendency  to  "  wobble "  will  be  easily  observed  in  the  latter 
holding  and  aiming.  If  one  should  be  so  steady  as  not  to 
see  it,  then  a  trial  of  the  same  thing  in  a  high  side  wind  will 
very  quickly  show  which  is  the  steadiest  way  of  holding. 

But  even  if  we  are  such  clever  shots  as  to  require  no  swing 
to  get  on  to  "  the  spot "  for  the  first  barrel,  we  shall  certainly 
require  to  swing  for  the  second  shot,  or,  alternatively,  adopt 
the  plan  of  taking  the  gun  down  from  the  shoulder  and 
re-presenting  it.  For  this  reason  the  position  of  the  left  hand 
is  not  ideal  for  the  second  barrel  when  it  is  outstretched  to 
the  full  length  of  the  arm,  or  when  the  arm  is  shortened  with 
the  elbow  bent  is  the  position  ideal  for  getting  on  a  point 
without  swing.  It  is  doubtful  whether  such  a  thing  as  the 
latter  can  happen  on  fast  crossing  game,  because  there  is 
obviously  unconscious  swing  in  the  act  of  bringing  the  gun 
from  the  "  ready  "  to  the  "  present." 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  learner,  as  well  as  the  gunner 
who  is  temporarily  out  of  form,  are  best  served  by  a  method 
in  -which  they  can  most  easily  swing  the  gun,  because  it  is 
by  the  act  of  swinging  the  gun  with  the  game  that  good  form 
is  so  often  recovered,  through  increase  of  confidence,  after 
a  partial  absence  without  leave.  But  the  act  of  swinging 
can  be  done  as  much  with  the  body  as  with  the  arms,  and 
certainly  lateral  swing  can  be  very  effective  when  partly 
accomplished  in  this  way. 

One  of  the  most  fertile  causes  of  missing  is  swinging  round 


FORM  IN  GAME  SHOOTING  85 

with  the  arms  and  shoulders,  and  not  with  the  hips.  Obviously, 
if  the  shooter  can  always  keep  facing  his  game,  the  triangle 
sides  made  with  gun,  arm,  and  body  all  remain  of  the  same 
length,  and  besides,  the  head  and  eye  remain  relatively  in 
the  same  position,  and  absolutely  in  the  same  line  with  the 
rib  and  sight  of  the  gun  and  game.  If,  then,  a  shooter  can 
rely  upon  thus  facing  his  game,  he  has  more  need  of  bringing 
up  the  gun  to  a  point  than  he  has  of  muscular  contraction  of 
the  arms  in  pushing  and  pulling  about  the  gun,  in  swinging 
with  the  game. 

Still,  we  can  none  of  us  afford  to  be  handicapped,  and 
there  are  occasions  when  the  arms  must  swing  for  all  they 
are  worth,  and  for  this  reason  an  easy  position  for  the  left 
hand  is  desirable,  although  that  position  need  not  necessarily 
be  looked  for  on  the  trigger  guard,  or  even  on  the  fore  end 
of  the  gun.  There  is  a  medium  in  all  things,  and  assuredly 
those  who  strain  to  get  their  hands  more  forward  than  looks 
comfortable  are  likely  to  miss  in  consequence.  This  remark 
is  made  because  the  author  has  seen  some  beginners  striving 
to  reach  forward,  because  they  have  read  that  it  is  proper ; 
whereas  they  looked  as  strained  as  if  they  were  on  the  rack, 
and  besides,  killed  no  game. 

One  of  the  most  awkward  attempts  is  to  try  to  follow  game 
overhead  and  fail  to  get  enough  in  front  to  fire.  There  is  then 
no  time  to  turn  round.  When  turning  round  is  necessary,  it 
should  be  done  with  the  gun  at  the  "  ready,"  not  at  the  "  present," 
and  not  until  the  foot  is  planted  firmly  should  the  gun  be  raised. 
Any  following  round  with  the  gun,  or  even  with  the  eye  if  the 
game  is  going  over,  will  not  prove  very  deadly  as  a  rule.  The 
late  Lord  Hill  and  his  brother,  the  Hon.  G.  Hill,  were  as  good 
pheasant  shots  as  anybody  is,  or  has  been,  and  it  was  very 
obvious  that  they  both  went  round  and  planted  a  firm  foot 
before  looking  for  their  game  from  overhead. 

The  two  positions  of  holding  the  left  hand  may  be  seen 
in  the  shooting  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  with  the  straight  arm, 
and  in  Mr.  R.  Rimington  Wilson,  with  the  bent  left  elbow. 

The  question  has  often  been  asked,  What  should  one  do  in 


86  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

case  a  neighbour  hits  a  bird  that  is  obviously  going  away  to 
die?  It  seems  to  depend  on  what  your  neighbour  would 
wish :  a  bad  sportsman,  if  that  is  not  a  paradox,  may 
ask  you  why  you  are  shooting  his  dead  birds.  That  is  only 
because  he  would  rather  run  the  risk  of  leaving  wounded  game 
than  lose  the  off  chance  of  claiming  another  bird.  But  a  good 
sportsman  would  generally  know  by  the  appearance  of  the 
game  whether  it  was  likely  to  fall  within  reasonable  distance; 
also  he  would  know  that  by  the  unwritten  laws  of  sport  first 
blood  constitutes  ownership  without  any  claim  being  made, 
and  there  should  be  no  false  pride  that  prevents  wounded 
creatures  being  added  to  the  bag  as  expeditiously  as  possible. 
There  is  another  consideration.  It  is  the  worst  possible  form 
to  cause  much  time  to  be  occupied  in  looking  for  wounded 
game.     It  spoils  the  sport. 

At  the  same  time,  one  who  values  the  good  opinion  of  others 
will  avoid  a  practice  of  sharing  birds,  or  shooting  at  those  more 
properly  the  targets  of  the  next  man.  There  is  often  a  doubt 
as  to  whose  shot  a  bird  properly  is.  It  is  not  good  that  both 
shooters  should  decline  the  chance  for  the  sake  of  the  other, 
but  generally  one  man  knows  the  other's  form  so  well,  that  if 
the  latter  does  not  take  the  bird  at  one  particular  instant  of 
time,  it  may  be  taken  as  left  alone  for  the  former  to  deal  with. 

Probably  anyone  who  remembers  the  sound  advice  given  in 

"  Be  to  others  kind  and  true. 
As  you'd  have  others  be  to  you," 

will  make  no  mistake  in  shooting  form,  and  will  certainly  never 
allow  his  gun  to  rake  the  flanks  of  his  neighbours  as  he  swings 
his  body  in  walking  in  line,  nor  will  he  allow  a  gun  at  any 
instant,  loaded  or  unloaded,  in  loading  or  unloading,  to  point 
at  anybody  for  a  fraction  of  a  second.  Besides  which,  he  will 
rather  let  off  a  dozen  woodcocks,  unshot  at,  than  run  the  risk 
of  putting  out  bcalcrs'  eyes,  or  of  being  told  that,  "although 
that  gim  seems  so  harmless  on  the  game,  it  has  probably  got 
some  shot  in  it."  ]^)csides  this,  a  shooter  is  responsible  for  the 
care,  and  also  the  appearance  of  care,  of  his  loader,  and  the  two 


FORM  IN  GAME  SHOOTING  87 

things  are  not  quite  the  same;  for  although  care  implies  that 
shooters'  bodies  are  safe,  it  does  not  always  refrain  from  attack- 
ing their  nerves.  For  instance,  when  empty  guns  are  jerked 
about,  aligning  everybody  in  turn,  it  is  quite  safe  for  the  bodies, 
but  very  bad  for  the  nerves  of  those  who  do  not  know  the  guns 
are  unloaded. 

Drawing  for  places  is  the  best  plan  of  posting  guns.  The 
author  has  found  any  other  way,  such  as  trying  to  give  the  best 
places  to  the  honoured  guest,  very  unsatisfactory.  You  never 
can  give  the  best  places  to  some  people,  for  they  do  not  know 
how  to  stand  still.  The  writer  has  sometimes  had  the  best 
shooting  himself  when  he  has  taken  the  worst  place,  simply 
because  the  "  honoured  guests  "  were  acting  as  "  flankers,"  and 
sending  the  game  elsewhere  that  should  have  gone  to  them. 
To  show  yourself  as  little  as  you  like,  but  to  move  not  at  all, 
is  obviously  a  part  of  good  shooting  form. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  it  is  not  the  best  of  form 
to  tell  a  fellow-guest  that  the  management  of  the  beat  is 
"  rotten,"  and  then  to  make  some  remark  that  your  host  trans- 
lates into  flattery.  The  fellow-guest  may  have  taken  your 
criticism  as  a  useful  hint  to  the  host  already,  with  your  own 
"great  authority"  attached  to  it. 

Somewhere  the  author  has  heard  that  His  Majesty  has  ex- 
pressed his  opinion  that  a  pheasant  shared  is  a  good  deal  worse 
than  a  pheasant  missed ;  and  in  the  head  keeper's  room  at 
Sandringham  hang  some  verses  which  therefore  obviously  have 
the  King's  approval,  the  more  surely  because  they  hang  there 
in  spite  of  their  greater  precept  than  polish.  They  appear  to 
round  off  a  chapter  on  form  in  shooting  with  a  Royal  behest. 
Part  of  them  read — 

"  Never,  never  let  your  gun 
Pointed  be  at  anyone  : 
That  it  may  unloaded  be, 
Matters  not  the  least  to  me. 

You  may  kill  or  you  may  miss, 

But  at  all  times  think  of  this  : 

All  the  pheasants  ever  bred 

\\'on'u   repay  for  one  man  dead." 


CRACK  SHOTS— I 

73  AILE  y  5  Magazine  initiated  an  interest-provoking  scheme 
JL^     when  it  set  its  readers  to   work  to  solve  the  difficult 
problem  of  which  twelve  men  were  the  most  expert  in  each 
branch   of  sport.     It  started  with  polo,  in  an  article  by  Mr. 
Buckmaster,  wherein  the  play  of  each  man  was  reviewed  in  the 
true  impartial  spirit  of  criticism.     The  names  had  just  then 
almost  been  officially  given  to  the  world  in  the  Hurlingham 
"  recent  form  "  list ;  and  this  the  readers  of  Bailey  confirmed. 
In  one  article  the  twelve  best  fishermen  were  voted  for ;  and 
fly  fishing,  unlike  polo,  is  a  private  sport;  unlike  shooting,  it 
is  not  even  carried  out  in  private  parties,  and  really  there  was 
nothing  to  go  upon  except  the  literary  efforts  of  the  fishermen 
voted  upon.     Because  a  man  can  write  and  can  interest  fisher- 
men,  he   need   not   necessarily   be   a   clever   angler.     Francis 
Francis  was  the  one ;  by  all  accounts  he  was  very  far  from  the 
other.     Consequently,  the  voting  for  anglers  of  highest  form 
was  on  a  totally  different  basis  from  that  of  the  less  private 
as  well  as  the  wholly  public  sports.     Had  we  set  the  ballot-box 
going  for  crack  marksmen  (exclusive  of  riflemen   and  pigeon 
shots)  sixty  years  ago,  the  man  who  must  have  come  to  the  top 
was  Colonel  Hawker.     He  would  have  been  there  by  right  of 
the  story  he  told  to  young  shooters,  for  whether  he  was  the 
superb  marksman  suggested  by  his  writings  or  not,  there  was 
nobody  to  challenge  it — no  one  who  had  shown  that  he  knew 
woodcraft  and   watercraft   half  as  well.      Probably  there  has 
never  been  anyone  since  who  could  hold  a  candle  to  the  Colonel 
for  a  complete  knowledge  of  the  latter  art  and  science  (for 
gunnery  was  as  much  a  concern  of  his  as  the  habits  of  fowl). 

88 


CRACK  SHOTS  89 

Had  we  voted,  we  must  inevitably  have  placed  him  top  of  the 
tree ;  because  game  shooting  then  was  not  a  thing  to  be  con- 
ducted in  large  parties,  but  was  a  concern  only  of  my  friend, 
my  pointer,  and  myself  There  were  no  spectators  except  the 
beaters,  who  were  up  the  trees  to  mark,  and  the  gamekeeper, 
who  carried  a  game-bag,  and  perhaps  rode  a  shooting  pony. 

Pigeon  shooting  did  a  little,  a  very  little  indeed,  to  make 
for  publicity  years  afterwards;  and  there  were  occasional  matches 
shot  at  partridges,  but  these  were  sometimes  more  by  way  of 
testing  the  game  capacity  of  estates  than  the  shooting  skill  of 
the  marksmen.  Thus  on  one  occasion  there  was  a  match  shot 
in  the  south-west  corner  of  Scotland  and  in  Norfolk  on  the 
same  day,  and  although  Norfolk  won  by  a  little,  the  bags  were 
near  enough  together  to  prove  that  the  two  districts  were  then 
very  equal  as  natural  partridge  country.  That  they  are  very 
unequal  now  only  proves  that  the  more  care  has  been  bestowed 
upon  game  in  the  Eastern  Counties. 

But  had  there  been  any  voting  for  crack  marksmen  in  those 
days,  it  is  certain  that,  after  Hawker,  the  men  who  were  most 
talked  of  (the  match  makers)  would  have  come  out  next.  They 
alone  were  heard  of  by  all  sportsmen,  and  the  sporting  maga- 
zines had  chronicled  their  prowess.  Other  shooters  were  "  born 
to  flush  unseen,  and  waste  their  powder  on  the  desert  hare" — 
to  misquote  to  fit  the  occasion. 

In  these  times  in  a  sense  it  is  different.  Men  do  see  each 
other  shoot  in  parties  up  to  fourteen.  But  it  is  clear  that  when 
parties,  even  half  as  big,  are  constantly  changing,  and  meeting 
fresh  guns  every  time,  that  the  form  of  any  individual  amongst 
them  soon  gets  to  be  known  as  accurately  as  that  of  any  race- 
horse in  training  at  headquarters.  This  is  how  it  happens  that 
it  has  been  possible  to  select  a  dozen  men  of  mark  and  marks- 
manship difficult  to  displace  in  the  consensus  of  opinion  of  the 
men  they  meet  and  shoot  with. 

But  just  as  the  majority  were  never  heard  of  when  George 
Osbaldeston,  Lord  Kennedy,  Horatio  Ross,  Coke  of  Norfolk, 
Colonel  Anson,  and  the  rest,  were  shooting  matches,  so  it  may 
very  well  be  that  the  best  shots  of  our  day  never  shoot  in  big 


90  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

parties,  and  are  not  known  as  good  shots  at  all.  There  are 
still  large  numbers  of  shooters  so  much  sportsmen  that  they 
think  of  woodcraft  and  sportsmanship  first,  and  only  of  marks- 
manship as  a  secondary  and  necessary  accomplishment. 

What,  after  all,  is  putting  a  bullet  into  the  heart  of  a  stag  at 
ICXD  or  150  yards  distant?  Any  gun-maker's  assistant  could 
make  sure  of  doing  it  at  the  standing  deer,  provided  he  did  not 
happen  to  suffer  from  buck  fever,  and  unless  he  was  a  sports- 
man at  heart  he  would  not.  But  to  stalk  that  stag  is  a  problem 
of  a  very  different  character.  The  novice  will  probably  make 
a  mess  of  the  simple  business  of  following  the  heels  of  his 
stalker — he  who  carries  his  rifle,  finds  the  stag,  stalks  him, 
puts  "  his  gentleman  "  in  position,  places  the  rifle  in  his  hand, 
and  tells  him  when  to  fire.  When  the  latter  can  do  all  that 
without  the  stalker's  assistance,  he  may,  and  will,  flatter  himself 
that  the  mere  shooting  straight  was  quite  an  elementary  stage 
in  the  art  of  woodcraft,  and  that  marksmanship  counts  for  very 
little  indeed  in  the  most  fashionable  and  most  sporting  use  of 
firearms  in  Britain.  Besides  this,  stalking  is  as  private  as  fish- 
ing with  the  dry  fly ;  and  again,  had  our  ancestors  had  to  select 
a  stalker  for  premier  position,  it  would  have  been  Scrope  first 
and  the  rest  nowhere,  just  on  the  same  grounds  as  before: 
Scrope  had  described  his  splendid  sport  in  his  book. 

Then,  obviously,  the  shooters  of  grouse  over  dogs  are  barred 
also ;  because,  two  being  company  and  three  none,  it  would  be 
impossible  to  take  a  consensus  of  opinion.  If  it  were  possible, 
what  principle  would  choice  be  made  upon  ?  The  mere  shooting 
straight  is  very  little  of  the  work  to  be  done.  Surely  the  man 
who  can  handle  his  own  brace  of  pointers  or  setters,  a  retriever 
also,  and  shoot  as  well,  is  a  step  above  him  who  can  only  shoot. 
Then  the  man  who  can  walk  for  ten  hours  is  far  and  away 
better  than  he  who  is  beaten  in  five. 

In  the  old  partridge  shooting  matches  it  was  the  pace  that 
killed  and  the  pace  that  won,  and  there  are  few  men  who  can 
walk  fast  all  day  and  shoot  straight ;  still  fewer  whom  people 
would  name  as  the  best,  because  they  would  not  have  seen  them. 
Then  there  is  the  big-game  hunter,  who  must  be  judged,  though 


CRACK  SHOTS  91 

probably  wrongly,  on  the  size  of  his  bag.  He,  too,  does  not 
perform  in  public.  And  all  these  sportsmen  have  to  be  left 
out  of  count  in  such  selections  as  the  readers  of  Bailey  have 
made.  Their  verdicts,  as  a  matter  of  course,  have  gone  to 
the  men  who  can  best  deal  with  streams  of  game  by  means 
of  three  ejector  guns  and  a  couple  of  loaders.  It  is  not  so 
much  a  question  of  shooting  straight  as  shooting  straightish 
and  often.  The  man  who  kills  two  out  of  four  in  one  unit  of 
time  is  better  than  he  who  kills  three  out  of  four  in  twice 
the  time.  At  the  end  of  the  day  the  former's  bag  will  be  the 
bigger,  he  will  have  had  more  sport,  and,  as  the  late  Prince 
Duleep  Singh  advised  his  sons,  "  Cartridges  are  made  to  be 
let  off." 

There  is  good  reason  why  the  driving  of  all  kinds  of  game 
should  be  the  most  popular  sport  with  the  greatest  numbers.  The 
days  when  the  squire  shot  game  every  day  in  the  week,  and  no 
faster  than  he  could  eat  it,  have  long  ago  departed ;  this  is  not 
because  the  *'  hunting "  of  a  pheasant  with  gun  and  dog  is  not 
as  good  sport  as  ever  it  was,  for  the  pheasant  is  at  least  as  inter- 
esting to  hunt  to  his  lair  before  he  is  flushed  and  shot,  as  is  the 
hare  to  hunt  until  she  can  move  no  more.  In  both  cases  the 
individual  gives  vastly  more  sport  than  when  it  is  shot  as  one 
amongst  hundreds.  But  the  "leisured  class,"  as  Americans 
call  it,  are  constantly  finding  more  work  to  do,  more  that  must 
be  done  ;  and  we  shall  soon,  like  the  Americans,  have  no  leisured 
class  but  the  unemployed,  just  as  they  have  none  except  the 
telegraph-boys.  That  is  the  reason  sport  has  to  be  taken  in 
junks.  It  does  not  make  for  a  knowledge  of  woodcraft ;  but 
there  is  little  woodcraft  necessary  in  ordering  the  beating  of 
coverts  crowded  with  pheasants.  Then,  although  the  single 
driven  bird  may  be  a  particularly  easy  shot  to  the  shooter, 
difficulty  increases  precisely  in  the  same  ratio  as  numbers.  The 
excellent  shot  who  can  kill  10  pheasants  quickly  and  consecu- 
tively cannot  necessarily  kill  30,  much  less  100,  in  three  and 
ten  times  the  period.  To  do  it,  he  must  be  in  condition  of  the 
best — at  least  his  arms  must.  There  are  crack  shots  like  Lord 
de  Grey,  who  in  his  prime  was  in  a  class  by  himself  in  tlie  butts, 


92  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

but  would  not  have  held  his  own  with  Lord  Walsingham  in  a 
stiff  day's  walking  up  game.  Some  of  the  crack  shots  have  not 
been  above  shooting-school  practice  at  streams  of  clay  birds, 
sent  over  them  in  order  to  get  the  arms  used  to  working  each 
gun  fairly,  quickly,  and  accurately,  and  without  the  man  be- 
coming demoralised  by  suddenly  asking  too  much  of  his  muscles. 
The  writer  has  found  his  arms  aching  under  the  work  as  if  with 
rheumatism. 

The  voting  placed  Lord  de  Grey  still  at  the  top  of  the  tree ; 
one  shooter  remarking  that  he  was  quite  in  a  class  by  himself. 
Lord  de  Grey  uses  hammer  ejector  guns,  and  he  can  always 
shoot  slowly,  and  on  his  day  (and  they  are  mostly  his  days)  he 
is  said  to  be  just  as  quick  as  the  chances  occur ;  some  of  his 
greatest  admirers  declare  that  you  can  never  tell  by  the  interval 
when  he  changes  guns.  Mr.  R.  Rimington  Wilson  and  Lord 
Walsingham  are  bracketed  for  second  place :  the  latter  does  less 
shooting  than  he  used  to,  and  the  former  more.  Most  of  the 
modern  generation  have  gone  to  school  to  Lord  Walsingham, 
and  Mr,  Wilson  is  described  as  the  best  grouse  shot  in  the 
world.  The  Prince  of  Wales  takes  rank  amongst  the  twelve 
best,  and  it  is  said,  to  the  credit  of  the  Royal  sportsman,  that  he 
would  always  draw  for  places  if  he  were  allowed  to  do  so.  His 
keenness  is  beyond  question,  and  his  experience  abroad  as  well 
as  in  this  country  is  well  known.  As  a  shot  he  is  very  quick. 
Prince  Victor  Duleep  Singh  is  remarkably  quick  too,  and  as 
accurate  as  can  be.  Low  flying  pheasants  he  can  kill  regularly 
without  hitting  them  elsewhere  than  in  the  head  and  neck,  but 
then  he  went  to  school  to  his  father  at  ten  years  old.  Amongst 
the  men  who  have  come  to  have  great  credit  as  shots  of  late 
years  is  Mr.  J.  F.  Mason,  who  now  has  Drumour,  long  shot  over 
by  the  late  Barclay  Field.  Mr.  Mason  can  kill  wild  pigeons  as 
well  as  game,  the  former  with  results  never  exceeded.  The 
Hon.  H.  Stonor  is  another  gunner  selected  by  the  voting  for  the 
twelve  cracks  ;  he  is  particularly  good  at  high  pheasants,  and  is 
built  for  shooting.  Mr.  Wykeham  Martin  and  Mr.  E.  de  C. 
Oakley  are  said  to  be  quite  exceptional  performers  in  a  high 
wind.     Lord    Falconer,  whose   shooting   with   the   late   Baron 


CRACK  SHOTS  93 

Hirsch  in  Hungary  was  a  revelation,  and  Lord  Ashburton,  who 
gave  us  all  a  lead  in  partridge  preserving,  are  noted  for  being 
graceful  shots,  and  as  effective  as  any ;  and  Mr.  Fryer  of  New- 
market is,  with  a  6^  lb.  gun  and  i  oz.  shot,  as  deadly  as  any 
man  living,  on  driven  partridges.  Mr.  Arthur  Blyth,  one  of  our 
greatest  partridge  preservers,  and  Mr.  Heatley  Noble  are  both 
included  in  the  marksmen  twelve.  It  will  be  noted  with  interest 
that  several  of  these  gunners  use  hammer  guns,  and  most  of 
them  guns  of  full  weight  and  a  light  charge  of  shot. 

It  is  very  likely  that  Bailey's  scheme  found  severe  critics, 
but  after  all  it  is  a  better  plan  than  that  which  allowed  Hawker 
and  Scrope  to  write  themselves  into  fame,  and  it  will  certainly 
go  to  make  the  History  of  Sport. 


CRACK   SHOTS— II 

THE  author  having  criticised  the  article  in  Bailey  s  Magazine 
in  the  above  remarks,  was  nevertheless  himself  respon- 
sible for  it  all,  except  the  voting,  so  that  his  criticism  is  obviously 
intended  in  good  part,  and  is  only  to  indicate  what  a  very 
limited  class  of  shooting  comes  under  review  in  an  article  of 
the  kind.  There  have  been  wonderful  shots  who  cannot  be 
compared.  For  instance,  good  snipe  shots,  who  saw  Mr. 
Hugh  Owen  shoot  snipe  in  Pembrokeshire  thirty-five  years 
ago,  told  the  author  that  he  not  only  beat  them,  but  out-classed 
them,  as  well  as  everyone  else  he  ever  met.  What  surprised 
was  the  great  distances  he  killed  these  birds  consecutively  with 
No.  5  shot — the  size  always  used  by  Lord  Walsingham. 

Since  that  article  was  written  the  author  has  often  been 
told  that  Lord  de  Grey  is  the  only  shooter  who  is  as  good  as 
his  reputation.  No  doubt  he  is  as  good,  for  many  of  those  who 
voted  put  him  "in  a  class  by  himself,"  and  more  particularly 
when  the  shooting  was  extra  difficult,  as  in  a  strong  wind  and 
when  birds  were  far  out.  Then  his  hammer  ejector  choke 
bores,  which  are  handed  to  him  at  full  cock,  and  always  loaded 
with  42  grains  of  Schultze  powder  and  i^V  of  No.  5,  have 
a  way  of  finding  the  right  place  at  a  greater  rate  than  any 
others.  It  has  been  said  of  him  that  you  can  never  tell  by 
the  interval  when  he  changes  his  guns.  The  two  most  dis- 
cussed incidents  in  his  shooting  have  been  when  he  accom- 
plished five  grouse  coming  together,  by  changing  guns  after  he 
had  shot  one  barrel,  and  then  had  time  to  get  two  more  of  the 
five  in  front  of  him  and  two  behind.     On  another  occasion,  in 

walking  through  covert  a  cry  of  "  mark  "  brought  round  Lords  de 

94 


CRACK  SHOTS  95 

Grey  and  Walsingham,  when,  amongst  the  trees,  they  accounted 
for  four  partridges  each,  or  the  whole  covey  of  eight  birds. 
Lord  de  Grey  is  a  very  deliberate  shot  when  he  has  time  to  be 
so,  and  he  has  been  seen  to  swing  his  gun  some  distance 
without  succeeding  in  getting  on  his  game,  and  in  consequence 
to  refrain  from  shooting.  Therefore  no  question  can  arise 
about  the  fact  that  he  aligns,  at  least  when  there  is  time. 
Lord  Walsingham  wrote  some  years  ago  to  describe  to  a 
newspaper  his  method  of  killing  wood  pigeons,  which,  amongst 
other  evolutions,  had  been  occasionally  chased  by  a  falcon. 
He  said  :  "  The  way  in  which  a  certain  measure  of  accuracy, 
although  by  no  means  a  satisfactory  measure  to  myself,  was 
attained  in  shooting  at  these  wood  pigeons  could  scarcely  be 
better  described  than  in  the  words  of  your  correspondent. 
He  writes :  '  I  myself  race  the  birds,  as  it  were,  in  my  mind 
without  bringing  up  the  gun  ;  I  then  swing  it  and  fire.  This 
swing  or  pitch  is  all  done  in  one  motion ' !  So  far  I  go  with 
him  entirely,  but  when  he  adds,  '  and  the  gun  is  not  stopped 
even  after  the  trigger  is  pulled,'  I  differ  from  him  in  practice. 
In  my  case  the  gun  is  stopped  at  the  instant  of  pulling  the 
trigger,  having  been  swung  to  as  nearly  as  possible  to  the 
exact  spot  the  bird  may  be  expected  to  reach  by  the  time  the 
charge  can  get  there  to  intercept  it."  Lord  Walsingham  was 
using  3^  drams  of  Hall's  Field  B  powder  and  i|  oz.  of  No.  5 
shot  from  a  cylinder  gun. 

The  number  of  cartridges  used  for  the  1070  grouse  in  the 
day  in  1888  was  1500.  As  a  feat  of  endurance  and  woodcraft 
this  is  hardly  likely  ever  to  be  surpassed,  especially  with  black 
powder.  Only  a  shooter  who  never  suffered  from  gun  headache 
could  have  done  it.  But  even  when  that  is  said,  the  keeping 
the  birds  on  a  2200  acre  moor  for  20  drives  is  the  point  of  the 
story.  When  the  late  Sir  F.  Milbank  killed  his  728  birds,  he 
reduced  his  shot  to  -|  of  an  ounce  in  order  to  get  penetration, 
and  declared  that  he  would  still  further  reduce  to  f  of  an  ounce 
for  the  sake  of  still  more  penetration. 

Mr.  F.  E.  R.  Fryer  has  been  observed  to  have  three 
pheasants  dead  in  the  air  at  once,  and  yet  in  another  page  he  is 


96 


THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 


described  as  a  deliberate  shot.  It  has  also  been  shown  upon 
another  page  that  it  takes  just  |  of  a  second  to  bring  the 
backward  movement  in  recoil  to  rest.  Probably  the  reaction 
of  the  shoulder  takes  as  long  after  recoil,  so  that  if  the  tallest 
first  bird  fell  from  40  yards  high,  and  took,  by  the  action  of 
gravity,  2|  seconds  to  reach  the  ground,  when  quite  dead,  we 
may  examine  the  time  thus  : — 

Recoil  and  reaction  after  first  kill    .  .  §  seconds 

Fresh  aim  and  let  off  .  .  •  f        » 

Recoil  and  its  reaction  after  second  kill  .  §        ,, 

Fresh  aim  and  let  off  .  .  •  I        ,> 

Total     2.83  or  about  2|  seconds 

Three-quarters  of  a  second  seems  to  be  ample  time  for 
getting  aim  and  letting  off.  Partridges  and  pheasants  when 
there  is  no  wind  travel  about  60  feet  a  second,  and  Mr.  Fryer 
has  also  been  observed  to  take  quadruple  toll  out  of  a  covey ; 
if  we  may  assume  this  done  within  40  yards  in  front  and 
40  behind,  we  have  4  birds  killed  in  4  seconds. 

This  would  represent  the  times : — 


First  recoil  and  recovery 
Second  aim  and  let  off 
Second  recoil  and  recovery 
Third  aim  and  let  off 
Third  recoil  and  recovery 
Fourth  aim  and  let  off 


f  seconds 


So  that  four  from  one  covey  of  partridges  represents  quicker 
shooting  than  three  pheasants  in  the  air  together,  provided,  of 
course,  that  the  partridges  are  not  coming  against  a  wind,  and 
are  not  in  straggling  formation. 

These  two  little  calculations  are  made  in  order  to  show 
the  enormous  importance  of  as  little  recoil  as  possible,  and 
that  is  also  the  reason  that  the  author  has  set  himself  to  design 
a  ballistic  pendulum  capable  of  easily  taking  the  momentum 


CRACK  SHOTS  97 

of  recoil,  and  the  momentum  of  the  shot,  at  the  same  discharge, 
which  is  a  thing  that  cannot  be  done  by  the  chronograph, 
because  that  instrument  only  records  the  time  (not  the  striking 
velocity)  of  the  thing  that  hits  it  and  breaks  connection,  and 
that  thing  is  the  fastest  pellet  instead  of  the  average  of  all,  or 
the  total  of  the  pellets.  Powder-makers  can  still  further 
reduce  recoil ;  that  is,  if  they  are  encouraged  by  a  general 
demand  for  those  powders  that  give  the  least  recoil  for  an 
equal  power  of  shot  impact. 

The  author  was  reminded  not  long  ago  by  the  Rev.  W. 
Serjeantson  of  an  occurrence  of  thirty  years  ago.  Three  guns, 
of  which  he  and  the  author's  were  two,  were  shooting  together 
over  dogs,  and  twice  on  the  same  day,  after  a  brood  of  grouse 
had  risen,  the  author,  having  been  fully  occupied  in  shooting, 
asked  the  keeper  which  way  the  rest  of  the  brood  had  gone. 
His  reply  was  on  both  occasions,  "  They  have  all  flown  one 
way."  That  is,  there  were  six  up  and  six  killed,  which  sounds 
much  more  commonplace  than  it  really  is,  because,  as  it  so 
seldom  happens  that  three  guns  do  shoot  together  over  dogs, 
when  by  chance  they  do  so  there  is  a  very  good  excuse  for 
two  barrels  to  be  let  off  at  the  same  bird,  but  of  course  only 
when  the  birds  rise  all  together,  as  they  did  on  these  occasions. 

The  most  sporting  bird  the  author  has  made  the  acquaintance 
of  is  the  Virginian  quail.  Three  guns  advancing  to  a  point 
at  these  birds  would  not  often  get  six  birds  at  the  flush  of  the 
covey,  although,  on  an  occasion  when  they  rise  at  twice,  two 
guns  have  got  five,  as  happened  once  when,  with  Mr.  Hobart 
Ames,  who  is  President  of  the  Shovel  Trust  in  America,  the 
author  was  shooting  over  his  and  Mr.  H.  B.  Duryea's  cele- 
brated setters,  one  of  which  could  easily  have  earned  in 
America  ;£"500  a  year  at  the  stud  if  his  owner  had  not  preferred 
to  shoot  over  him.  But  it  is  not  at  the  rise  of  the  covey  that 
these  birds  are  difficult.  As  soon  as  they  are  flushed  they  fan 
out  and  take  to  covert,  and  their  twisting  second  rise,  with  the 
scrub  between  them  and  the  gun,  makes  them  very  difficult. 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Duryea  are  both  remarkably  good  quail  shots  ; 
the  author  could  not  say  which  is  the  better,  but  he  believes 
7 


98  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

Mr.  Duryea  claims  to  be  the  better  turkey  shot,  a  claim  which 
the  lady  admits.  Mr.  Duryea  can  even  make  the  decoy  turkey 
gobble  by  the  accuracy  of  his  shooting  upon  occasion.  In 
Tennessee  the  author  was  by  their  kindness  introduced  to  the 
old  English  fashion  of  shooting  by  the  use  of  shooting  ponies. 
The  mounted  guns,  whether  one  or  three,  had  three  handlers 
of  dogs,  each  mounted  also,  and  each  working  a  brace  of  speedy 
dogs,  and  by  that  means  covering  three-quarters  to  a  mile  of 
country  at  a  beat.  The  horn  is  used  to  sound  "  a  point,"  and 
then  the  six  miles  an  hour  "  fox  trot "  is  increased  to  hunting 
speed,  until  the  point  is  reached,  when  the  shooters  slide  off 
and  shoot.  The  useless  (?)  nigger  can,  at  such  times,  manage 
to  lead  six  horses.  This  sport  is  a  sort  of  cross  between 
hunting  and  shooting,  as  also  was  that  of  ancient  England,  if 
all  accounts  are  true.  So  was  hunting  in  the  New  Forest,  when 
William  Rufus  missed  his  way,  and  ran  up  against  an  arrow 
by  mistake. 

All  good  shots  at  their  best  must  shoot  in  the  same  way : 
what  differs  is  the  way  they  see  their  own  performances  and 
the  way  they  describe  them.  This  has  been  dealt  with  on 
other  pages.  But  likenesses  do  not  end  with  actual  aiming, 
for  somewhat  similar  to  the  American  quail  shooting  described 
above  was  the  method  by  which  the  late  Maharajah  Duleep 
Singh  killed  his  440  grouse  in  the  day.  That  is  to  say,  he  had 
several  brace  of  dogs  with  as  many  handlers  going  at  the 
same  time,  and  rode  from  point  to  point.  But  for  quickness  of 
shooting  and  changing  guns  he  has  probably  never  been  beaten. 

Every  shooter,  as  far  as  the  author  can  learn,  is  sometimes 
surprised  at  missing  with  the  first  barrel,  and  at  the  ease  with 
which  the  second  barrel  accomplishes  the  more  difficult  task. 
Surely  we  may  take  a  lesson  from  the  crack  shots  who  have 
this  experience.  The  pace  at  which  they  are  obliged  to  swing 
to  catch  up  for  the  second  shot  necessitates  an  uncontrollable 
gun  at  the  end  of  the  swing — a  gun  going  faster  than  merely 
keeping  up  with  the  bird,  and  they  kill  because  they  are  more 
forward  than  they  thought.  But  if  so,  it  may  be  asked,  "  What 
then  is  the  use  of  alignment?"     Precious   little  for  that  shot 


CRACK  SHOTS  99 

certainly,  seeing  that  there  is  no  time  to  correct  aim.  But 
alignment  does  not  mean  looking  down  the  rib  and  seeing  the 
bird  at  the  end  of  it ;  it  means  looking  down  the  rib  at  some 
point  in  space  which  moves  as  the  bird  moves,  and  its  principal 
value  is  not  that  it  is  good  to  correct  aim,  but  that  it  guides 
the  first  swing  to  the  spot.  For  instance,  in  the  second  shot 
the  gun  is  at  the  shoulder  always,  and  swings  in  to  the  correct 
place  while  always  in  alignment  with  the  eye. 

Ten  years  ago,  Sir  Ralph  P.  Gallwey  picked  out  the 
following  as  the  best  shots  in  England  : — Lords  de  Grey, 
Walsingham,  Huntingfield,  Ashburton,  Carnegie,  Wemyss,  and 
Bradford,  the  Maharajah  Duleep  Singh,  Messrs.  F.  E.  R. 
Fryer,  A.  Stuart  Wortley,  R.  Rimington  Wilson,  and  F.  S. 
Corrance. 

Bailey's  list  of  voted-for  good  shots  was — 


f  A.  W.  Blyth. 
C.  P.  Wykeham  Martin. 
Prince  F.  Duleep  Singh. 
Lord  Carnarvon. 


I.  Earl  de  Grey.  /E.  de  C.  Oakley. 

JMr.  Rimington  Wilson.  -'' [Lord  Ashburton. 

iLord  Walsingham. 

3.  Mr.  H.  Noble.  ^ 

^  6.. 

I' Hon.  H.  Stoner. 
Lord  Falconer. 
4. ^Prince  Victor  Duleep  Singh.  rLord  Warwick. 

H.R.H.  the  Prince  of  Wales.         7.  j  Lord  Westbury. 
[F.  E.  R.  P>yer.  I  Sir  Robert  Gresley. 

Prince  Victor  Duleep  Singh  is  no  doubt  about  as  quick  a 
game  shot  as  his  father  before  him ;  the  latter  as  a  shot  com- 
pared in  the  same  way  with  Englishmen  as  his  countryman 
"  Ranji  "  compares  with  our  slower  cricketers. 

The  Prince  of  Wales  is  very  quick  and  very  keen ;  not  at 
all  a  feather-bed  sportsman,  he  is  ready  at  all  times  to  face  the 
weather  for  a  very  little  sport.  His  duck  shooting  in  Canada 
and  his  jungle  sport  in  India  are  within  the  recollection  of 
everybody.  That  he  does  not  draw  for  places  is  because  a 
host's  will  is  law  even  to  the  heir  to  England's  crown. 

The  Hon.  H.  Stonor,  who  is  not  easily  beaten  for  style  and 


100  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

accuracy,  uses  33  grains  of  E.G.  No.  3  and  i  oz.  shot. 
He  uses  hammer  ejector  guns,  as  do  the  Prince  of  Wales, 
Lord  de  Grey,  and  Lord  Bradford,  who  once  did  some  record 
shooting  in  Scotland. 

Mr.  Wykeham  Martin  is  supposed  to  be  as  good  in  a  gale  of 
wind  as  any  man,  and  his  rabbit  shooting  across  rides  is  at 
least  as  good  as  anybody's.  He  has  made  a  name  for  himself 
on  snipe  in  Ireland,  and  has  the  very  sporting  reputation  of 
being  the  most  unselfish  shooter  in  England. 

Mr.  R.  Rimington  Wilson,  who  has  been  referred  to  on 
another  page,  is  specially  good  at  low  crossing  grouse,  which 
are  generally  considered  much  more  difficult  than  those  which 
show  against  the  sky,  and  he  takes  the  near  birds  just  above 
the  beak,  and  as  he  was  described  in  Bailey  by  some  shooters 
as  the  best  grouse  shot  in  the  world,  here  is  another  very  good 
proof  of  alignment  being  the  correct  thing. 

Mr.  Arthur  Blyth  has  accounted  for  64  partridges  in  one 
drive,  and  is  considered  a  brilliant  shot. 

Mr.  E.  de  C.  Oakley  is  probably  the  best  shot  in  North 
Wales ;  he  is  especially  good  in  a  gale  of  wind,  at  hard 
feathered  game,  and  meets  the  difficulty  with  a  big  charge. 

Lord  Ashburton  is  said  by  several  of  the  voters  to  be  a 
most  graceful  shot,  and  his  accuracy  is  beyond  dispute. 

Mr.  Fryer  complains  that  he  gets  older  while  the  partridges 
do  not ;  other  people  think  he  uses  a  6\  lb.  gun  and  i  oz.  shot 
in  a  way  to  prevent  them  getting  older. 


MR.    15.    J.    WARWICKS    COMl'ION    I'RIDK.    A    l'()IXIi;R    WHICH    'IWICK   WON 
IHK    IIKI.I)     IRIAL   CHA.MI'IOX    SIAKE 


CAI'T.    II.    Ill-.N  WODli    I.ONSji  Al.i:--    K.iril  li:i,l>    lUI  l  I:R,     IIIK   CKI.KIiR.X  IKI) 
lli;i,l)     Ikl.M,    WINNINC    "-KIll'.R 


POINTERS  AND  SETTERS 

TWENTY-FIVE  years  ago  the  fashion  was  to  decry 
driving  game,  and  to  hold  up,  as  the  good  old  sporting 
plan,  the  use  of  gun-dogs  in  the  pursuit  of  partridges  and  grouse. 
But  this  was  only  a  fashion  of  the  fashionless.  Shooters  were 
not  so  childish  as  to  decline  to  shoot  in  one  method  because 
they  could  not  do  it  in  the  other,  and  half  the  grouse  moors  and 
three-quarters  of  the  partridge  ground  then,  as  now,  could  not  be 
worked  with  pointers  and  setters  without  sacrifice  of  a  large 
portion  of  the  game.  Either  it  was  driven  away  for  wiser 
neighbours  to  bag,  or  else  it  died  of  old  age  after  doing  as 
much  harm  to  its  successors  as  any  early  Hanoverian  king  of 
England — that  is,  as  much  as  possible.  The  reasons  for  the 
growth  of  wildness  are  many,  but  in  dealing  with  dogs  it  is 
only  necessary  to  take  the  birds  as  we  find  them,  and  to  get 
them  in  the  most  sporting  fashion  that  is  left  open  to  us. 

At  the  same  time,  it  may  be  remarked  that  the  Press 
changed  completely  round  after  the  publication  of  the  Badminton 
shooting  books,  and  it  became  as  unfashionable  to  write  of 
shooting  over  dogs  as  it  had  been  to  write  of  driving. 

But  the  views  expressed  in  the  Badminton  books  were 
drawn  from  Yorkshire  and  Norfolk,  and  the  result  was  that  this 
time  both  sportsmen  and  the  Press  attempted  to  force  an 
imitation  of  those  methods  that  in  those  counties  had  only 
been  adopted  as  a  choice  of  two  evils,  when  birds  became  so 
wild  that  it  was  a  question  of  driving  or  no  game.  This  fashion 
has  made  the  act  of  shooting  take  rank  above  the  all-embracing 
"sportsmanship"  in  the  minds  of  those  who  have  grasped  at 
and  acquired  the  first-named  part  without  aiming  at  the  whole. 

101 


I02  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

But  this  view  is  not  likely  to  last  longer  than  the  mechanical 
part  of  shooting  remains  a  difficulty.  It  is  little  likely  to  do  so 
for  long,  with  so  many  shooting  schools,  where  clay  birds  can  be 
sent  over  the  gun  in  streams  at  all  angles  and  all  speeds. 
Here  the  management  of  two,  three,  or  four  guns  can  be  learnt, 
ambition  can  be  served,  and  after  that  a  decline  in  keenness  will 
generally  set  in.  One  of  the  greatest  and  best  shooters  of  the 
seventies  and  eighties,  one  who  carried  most  weight  in  the 
Badminton  book,  seems  to  have  almost  given  up,  and  it  may 
fairly  be  assumed  that  when  the  mechanical  part  of  shooting  is 
once  gained  to  perfection,  it  leaves  no  room  for  further 
ambition. 

But  this  is  far  from  being  true  of  shooting  over  dogs.  There 
is  so  much  more  to  learn  than  the  mere  mechanical  part  of 
shooting.  Whether  one  breeds  dogs,  breaks  them,  works  them, 
or  has  them  worked  by  others,  they  are  a  constant  source  of 
anticipation,  and  anticipation  in  sport  is  of  far  greater  interest 
than  realisation. 

Possibly  one  does  no  good  to  the  interest  of  anticipation  by 
attempting  to  assist  sportsmen  to  the  choice  or  breaking  of 
better  dogs.  Those  the  author  began  with  were  his  ideals  until 
he  knew  of  better,  and  a  super-ideal  would  be  useless  were  it 
not  impossible.  But  when  a  poor  team  of  dogs  may  lead  to 
the  abandonment  of  canine  assistance  in  shooting,  it  is  another 
matter,  and  everybody  who  knows  the  pleasure  given  by  dogs 
should  strive  to  improve  the  race. 

For  the  last  forty  years  there  have  been  held  public  field 
trials  on  game  for  pointers  and  setters.  Whether  these  events 
have  been  worked  off  upon  paired  partridges  in  the  spring,  or 
contested  by  finding  young  broods  of  grouse  just  before  the 
opening  of  the  season,  they  have  given  breeders  and  sportsmen 
the  chance  of  breeding  by  selection  for  pace,  nose,  quartering, 
and  breaking.  Unfortunately,  they  have  left  out  stamina. 
There  have  been  what  were  at  the  time  called  "  stamina  trials," 
but  as  they  were  sometimes  won  by  slow  dogs  they  did  not 
merit  the  high-sounding  title,  and  for  real  stamina  trials  one 
has  to  eo  to  America. 


POINTERS  AND  SETTERS  103 

Trials  for  ability  to  stay  are  much  more  necessary  now  than 
ever  before,  because  the  dog  shows  have  ceased  to  be  any 
assistance  to  breeders  of  working  dogs.  When  it  was  possible 
to  compare  at  shows  the  external  forms  of  pointers  and  setters 
that  had  succeeded  at  field  trials,  they  were  of  some  use,  on 
the  ground  that  true  formation  is  suggestive  of  stamina.  But 
since  separate  breeds  of  dogs  have  been  evolved  by  the  shows 
for  the  shows,  the  working  dogs  are  either  not  sent  to  them,  or 
do  not  win  if  they  are  sent,  so  that  the  show-winning  pointer  or 
setter  is  taken  to  be  bad  and  of  a  degraded  sort  unless  the 
contrary  is  proved.  This  is  a  great  pity,  for  there  is  no  doubt 
that  stamina  is  the  foundation  of  almost  every  other  virtue  in 
the  pointer  and  setter. 

A  dog  that  cannot  go  on  long  has  the  period  of  his  daily 
breaking  restricted,  he  does  not  learn  wisdom,  he  does  not  gain 
enough  experience  to  make  a  proper  use  of  his  scenting  powers, 
and  if,  at  last,  success  in  breaking  is  achieved,  then  the  reward 
for  labour  expended  is  half  an  hour's  fast  work  instead  of  half  a 
day  of  it. 

This  means  that  the  shooter  must  have  a  large  kennel  and 
one  or  two  kennel  men,  instead  of  a  small  kennel  easily  looked 
after  by  a  gamekeeper  without  hindrance  to  his  other  work. 
The  question  then  becomes  serious,  and  those  who  live  in 
London  or  in  the  neighbourhood  of  big  towns  usually  have 
not  the  necessary  room  for  the  healthy  maintenance  of  a  large 
kennel  of  dogs.  If  they  take  moors  in  Scotland  or  Ireland, 
the  kennels  there  are  usually  only  of  service  in  the  shooting 
season,  especially  if  the  moors  are  not  taken  upon  long  lease. 
Scotland  is  bad  wintering  for  dogs  bred  in  England,  and 
although  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  Duke  of  Gordon, 
Lord  Lovat,  and  many  other  sportsmen  wintered  their  famous 
kennels  of  setters  in  Scotland,  their  dogs  came  to  have  coats 
much  thicker  than  are  to  be  seen  now  upon  setters — that  is,  they 
had  less  feather  but  more  body  covering.  At  least,  that  was  the 
opinion  formed  by  the  writer  on  paying  a  visit  to  the  late  Lord 
Lovat's  kennel  in  the  early  seventies.  At  that  time  this  kennel 
and  that  of  Lord  Cawdor  were  the  only  representatives  of  the 


104  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

old  black-white-and-tan  kennel  of  the  Duke  of  Gordon, 
although  the  blood  of  the  latter  sort  was  widely  spread  as 
crosses  in  other  races  of  setters.  This  was  obviously  so  in  the 
black-and-tan  kennel  of  the  late  Lord  Rosslyn  (who  introduced 
bloodhound  to  get  the  colour),  and  in  that  of  many  English 
setter  kennels.  They  were  known  as  English  setters,  and 
shown  as  such,  only  because  there  was  a  mistaken  idea  that 
Gordons  were  black-and-tan,  without  white. 

Stamina,  then,  must  be  improved  if  dogs  are  to  be  generally 
popular  where  they  can  be  used.  But  some  few  of  the  winning 
field  trial  workers  would  look  foolish  after  30  minutes' 
experience  of  a  bed  of  strong  heather.  Shooters  at  Aldridge's 
annual  sale  are  frequently  observed  purchasing  two  or  three 
little  highly  broken  weeds  that  could  not  possibly  give 
satisfaction.  There  is  often  a  great  deal  of  hustle,  fuss,  and 
fictitious  pace  about  the  very  little  dogs  that  are  now  some- 
times bred,  but  their  bolt  is  soon  shot,  and  they  are  a 
hindrance  to  sport  for  the  rest  of  the  day.  The  old  dogs 
that  were  regarded  as  stayers  did  not  look  to  be  in  such  a 
mighty  hurry;  they  had  a  long  easy  stride,  with  no  up  and 
down  action  (it  is  that  which  tires).  As  being  much  bigger, 
they  were  probably  much  faster  than  the  little  hustler  division 
now  so  numerous,  and  some  of  them  could  keep  up  the  pace 
all  day.  Many  could  do  a  half-day's  work,  and  some  of  those 
that  were  not  regarded  as  stayers  were  brilliantly  fast  and 
slashingly  bold  for  two  hours  in  the  morning  and  another  two 
in  the  afternoon.  The  author  remembers  one  of  the  latter 
that  after  winning  the  National  Championship  at  the  Shrewsbury 
Meeting  in  the  spring  put  out  his  shoulder.  The  mend  was  a 
bad  one,  and  although  this  accident  destroyed  the  stamina  it 
did  not  interfere  much  with  the  pace  of  this  extraordinary  dog. 
Afterwards,  for  some  years,  he  could  beat  the  best  in  a  most 
successful  field  trial  kennel  for  20  minutes,  but  then  he  was 
done  for.  What  has  been  said  about  the  uselessness  of  non- 
stayers  may  be  emphasised  by  the  experience  of  this  dog,  for, 
although  he  was  often  taken  out  in  the  spring  as  a  "  trial 
horse  "  for  young  ones,  it  was  thought  useless  to  put  him  into 


POINTERS  AND  SETTERS  loS 

a  shooting  team  for  Scotland.  That  is  to  say,  the  most 
brilliant  20  minutes  worker  was  useless  then,  and  is  so  now. 

It  is  not  often  that  absolute  proof  of  the  value  of  any 
individual  points  in  the  dog  is  obtained.  But  here  was  one, 
proving  that  shoulders  have  little  effect  upon  speed,  but  are 
all-important  for  staying.  When  Mr.  A.  E.  Butter's  Faskally 
Bragg  was  winning  Champion  honours  on  the  bench  and  in 
the  field  too,  we  had  the  exhibition  of  a  heavy-shouldered 
dog  winning  at  the  shows,  where  true  formation  for  staying 
was  unknown,  and  also  in  the  field  trials,  where  it  was  never 
tried.  Nose,  speed,  and  beauty  of  attitude  in  pointing  and 
backing  placed  this  dog  at  the  top,  but  had  there  been  real 
stamina  trials  he  would  never  have  been  heard  of.  Once  the 
writer  saw  him  on  a  freshly-turned  sandy  plough,  where  he 
was  hunted  against  Mr.  A.  T.  Williams'  very  small  pointer, 
Rose  of  Gerwn.  The  latter  went  100  yards  for  every  20  that 
Bragg  tumbled  over.  Yet  here  was  your  show  Champion 
beaten  to  a  standstill,  on  the  question  of  external  form  alone, 
by  an  ugly-headed  little  pointer  that  could  not  have  won  a 
prize  at  a  show  in  a  class  by  herself  Yet  for  heart  and  courage, 
for  pace,  and  probably  for  stamina,  there  have  been  few  to  equal 
her  in  the  last  decade. 

The  dog-show  setters  are  most  beautiful  creatures,  but  the 
points  on  which  they  win  here  and  in  America  are  not  the 
points  that  a  sportsman  requires.  "Feather"  goes  a  long  way 
towards  victory,  but  in  America  they  shear  their  setters  before 
the  shooting  season  opens.  The  reason  for  this  is  that  the 
burrs  there  are  not  only  a  nuisance,  as  they  sometimes  are  here, 
but  a  total  prevention  of  sport.  Any  coat  that  collects  them 
brings  the  dog  to  a  standstill  in  a  few  minutes.  They  are 
much  smaller,  but  the  spikes  are  sharper  and  stronger  than 
those  of  the  English  plant. 

Slack  loin  is  only  a  drawback  at  the  shows,  but  it  stops  a 
dog  in  work.  A  long,  refined  head  is  a  beauty  at  the  shows, 
but  it  holds  no  brains  that  amount  to  anything.  But  worse 
than  all  this  is  the  fact  that  the  hunting  instinct  has  lapsed  in 
the  show  breeds.     To  be  induced  to  range  they  must  be  excited. 


I06  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

Now,  in  the  truly  bred  pointer  or  setter  you  may  start  by 
repressing,  go  on  by  directing,  and  end  by  many  "  dressings," 
but  you  cannot  weaken  the  hunting  instinct,  however  you  try 
to  do  it.  In  the  former  sort  you  have  to  wind  up  the  clock 
and  put  the  hands  right  at  every  turn,  in  the  latter  you  have  to 
put  the  regulator  right  once  and  the  works  will  do  the  rest. 
It  is  impossible  to  endow  with  instinct  at  all,  and  especially  is 
it  impossible  when  excitement  has  taken  the  place  of  the 
hunting  habit.  You  have  only  the  excitement  on  which  to 
work  to  re-create  a  love  of  hunting,  at  the  same  time  that  you 
have  to  repress  excitement  in  the  interests  of  breaking. 

It  is  not  very  wonderful  that  show-bred  dogs  cannot  win 
field  trials.  To  ask  a  breaker  to  educate  them  is  a  little 
worse  than  to  turn  Irish  salmon  into  the  Thames  and  expect 
them  to  come  back  there.  When  the  last  Thames  salmon  was 
killed  the  last  instinct  to  return  to  the  Thames  vanished  from 
Salmo  salar.  You  can  no  more  get  it  back  than  you  can  make 
a  field  trial  dog  out  of  a  show-bred  one,  or  bring  the  dead 
instinct  to  life. 

Having  got  the  right  blood  in  the  form  of  a  puppy  of  ten 
or  twelve  months  old,  and  one  that  has  learnt  no  bad  manners 
at  walk  or  in  some  bad  breaker's  hands,  there  is  a  straight  road 
to  success,  but  one  that  is  not  always  taken.  The  first  thing  to 
teach  a  puppy  is  to  understand  all  you  say  to  it.  Until  this 
has  been  accomplished,  the  loudest  shouts  of  "  Down  charge," 
"  Drop,"  or  any  other  order,  are  in  danger  of  being  mistaken  for 
just  the  opposite  to  what  is  intended.  Most  of  the  clever 
breakers  at  field  trials  have  unique  signals,  invented  by 
themselves,  and  practised  by  nobody  else.  It  is  a  good  way 
there,  and  in  shooting,  because  your  dog  is  not  then  confused 
by  orders  given  by  other  people.  One  man  drops  his  dog  by 
bringing  his  stick  to  the  ground,  and  signals  it  forward  by 
holding  up  his  hand.  The  general  practice  is  just  the  reverse. 
It  does  not  matter  what  signals  or  words  of  command  are 
used  if  they  always  mean  the  same  for  the  dog. 

The  more  often  orders  are  given,  and  obedience  to  them  is 
enforced,   the    more   instinctive    becomes    the    dog's   habit   of 


POINTERS  AND  SETTERS  107 

obedience;  but  against  this  must  be  placed  the  fact  that  a 
puppy  should  never  be  tired  of  a  lesson.  A  lesson,  before 
entry  on  game,  should  always  be  only  a  part  of  a  game  at 
romps  to  the  dog.  Consequently,  it  must  not  go  on  so  long 
that  the  puppy  tires  of  romping,  or  be  repeated  so  often  in 
the  game  that  the  youngster  thinks  it  "  a  bore." 

Obedience  is  one  thing,  prompt  obedience  quite  another; 
and  it  is  the  latter  that  serves  the  sportsman,  not  the  former. 
It  is  the  last  stage  of  hand  breaking  to  ensure  prompt 
obedience  when  hesitation  or  unwillingness  has  gone  before. 
These  two  stages  generally  occur  in  dropping  to  hand  and  gun 
lessons,  and  in  answering  whistle,  all  of  which  will  require  a 
little  pushing  and  pulling  force  to  be  used  in  the  early  stages, 
until  the  meaning  of  the  teacher  is  grasped  by  the  pupil.  Up 
to  this  point  the  order  has  to  be  repeated  many  times  as  the 
force  is  being  used,  in  order  that  the  pupil  may  grasp  the 
meaning,  which  he  will  only  do  gradually.  But  after  the  lesson 
has  once  been  learnt  it  is  a  bad  plan  to  give  any  order  twice. 
It  should  be  once  only,  followed  by  obedience  or  punishment. 
This  sounds  severe,  but  it  is  the  method  for  saving  the 
necessity  for  severity  in  the  future. 

After  the  hand-breaking  stage  comes  temptation  during 
excitement,  which  is  -a  very  different  thing  from  mere 
"  cussedness,"  as  the  Americans  call  it,  in  hand  breaking, 
where  a  pupil  only  disobeys  for  the  sake  of  disobedience. 
That  is  the  reason  why  prompt  and  instinctive  obedience  has 
to  be  obtained  before  the  canine  pupil  goes  out  into  the  fields 
or  on  to  the  moors,  and  sees  game.  When  this  excitement 
begins,  all  hand-breaking  lessons  may  be  forgotten  on  the 
spur  of  the  moment,  and  yet  it  is  extremely  important  that 
they  should  not  be,  and  that  there  should  be  no  necessity  for 
punishment,  and  as  little  as  possible  for  restraint. 

It  is  to  avoid  these  misfortunes  that  hand  breaking  should 
culminate  in  forced  promptitude  on  the  pupil's  part.  Up  to 
this  time  your  puppy  has  dropped  and  answered  the  whistle 
because  it  pleases  you  and  does  not  hurt  him,  and  he  has 
done  it,  possibly,  as  if  he  thought  you  took  a  particular  interest 


108  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

in  seeing  how  long  he  could  be  about  it.  But  in  the  field,  and 
in  the  presence  of  hares,  such  deliberation  is  a  premium  on 
forgetfulness  of  the  breaker's  existence.  Then  a  hare  is  very 
likely  chased,  and  a  season's  unnecessary  work,  and  of  a  negative 
value,  has  become  obligatory  in  an  instant. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  the  last  lessons  in  hand  breaking  are 
of  a  kind  which  make  the  puppy  think  that  a  word  and  a 
blow  are  not  separated  by  distance  between  the  man  and  dog, 
hares  will  never  prove  a  trouble  or  distance  a  danger  in  the 
field  or  on  the  moor. 

The  way  the  author  brought  about  prompt  obedience  was 
by  trickery.  Puppies  romping  in  lines  were  ordered  to  drop, 
then  the  lines  would  be  passed  round  a  tree  in  front  of  them, 
which  would,  by  its  position,  give  a  free  run  to  the  dogs  of 
40  or  50  yards  when  they  were  called  on.  But  the  instant 
before  they  reached  the  limit  of  the  cord  the  order  to  drop 
would  be  given,  so  that  any  hesitation  would  inflict  a  sharp 
tumble  by  reason  of  the  full  limit  of  the  cord  having  been 
reached  at  a  gallop.  One  lesson  of  that  sort  gives  the  dog  a 
sense  of  the  wonderful  powers  of  his  breaker,  who  may  be 
hundreds  of  yards  away  when  the  sudden  power  is  exerted ; 
and  about  two  or  three  such  experiences,  in  the  last  week  of 
hand  breaking,  give  the  man  in  the  field  apparently  mesmeric 
powers  over  his  pupil.  It  need  hardly  be  pointed  out  that, 
to  succeed,  the  dog  must  expect,  or  suspect,  no  trap.  Con- 
sequently, he  must  be  regularly  exercised  in  his  cord,  and  the 
trick  must  not  be  repeated  until  the  former  attempt  has  been 
totally  forgotten.  This  can  be  the  more  readily  brought  about 
by  several  times  dropping  the  dogs  in  the  ordinary  way,  and 
allowing  them  to  find  themselves  free  when  the  order  to  come 
forward  is  given.  In  the  mind  of  the  pupil,  it  must  not  be  the 
cord,  but  the  breaker's  order,  that  does  the  jerking. 

Usually  the  author  has  associated  this  jerk  with  the  ex- 
plosion of  a  pistol,  of  course  after  making  sure  that  the  dogs 
did  not  fear  a  pistol,  and  were  not  "gun-shy,"  or  to  be  made  so. 
See  what  power  this  gives  a  breaker  at  distances  beyond  the 
travel  of  his  voice  or  whistle  !     A  puppy  is  ranging  beautifully 


POINTERS  AND  SETTERS  109 

half  a  mile  away  nearly,  and  cannot  hear  your  whistle  reminding 
it  of  its  distance.  In  the  contrariness  of  canine  nature,  that  is 
the  exact  instant  the  only  hare  in  the  parish  will  select  to  jump 
up  before  your  puppy's  nose.  The  strange  form  and  sudden 
appearance,  as  from  nowhere,  will  surprise ;  another  instant,  the 
ancestral  wild  beast  of  prey  will  take  possession  of  your 
cherished  pet,  now  nearly  in  the  next  parish,  and  you  would 
be  helpless  to  intervene  but  for  the  gun  in  your  hand  and  for 
its  associations  with  the  tree  and  the  cord  in  the  park.  You 
fire  at  the  exact  instant  before  canine  surprise  is  succeeded  by 
a  burst  of  coursing  speed,  and  your  pupil  is  glued  to  the  ground, 
while  your  only  hare  is  preserved  from  extinguishing  her  race 
and  your  chances  of  a  broken  dog  as  well. 

The  worst  of  permitting  puppies  to  chase  once  is  that 
they  soon  learn  to  chase  the  trail,  or  "  drag,"  of  hare  when 
none  has  been  seen.  It  is  difficult  to  be  sure  when  a  puppy 
is  doing  this ;  but  never  wait  until  you  are  sure,  is  the  author's 
suggestion :  fire  at  once.  Then,  if  your  young  dog  has  been 
broken  on  practical  lines,  you  by  one  operation  serve  two 
ends,  for  you  stop  a  chase  and  rebuke  your  dog  if  there  was  a 
hunt,  and  if  not,  you  have  only  given  an  unnecessary  lesson  in 
dropping  to  shot,  which  generally  does  good  and  never  any 
harm,  for  it  disturbs  game  far  less  than  whistling  or  shouting. 

It  is  not  intended  here  to  repeat  the  elementary  advice 
about  hand  breaking.  It  is  much  more  simple  to  say  that  a 
puppy  must  be  talked  to  like  a  little  child.  It  will  be  much 
quicker  than  the  child  to  take  a  meaning,  but  it  remains  a 
child,  if  a  quick  one,  all  the  days  of  its  life. 

If  your  puppy  has  unfortunately  learnt  to  chase  hares  or 
to  kill  chickens  before  you  begin  with  it,  severe  measures  will 
have  to  be  taken  to  cure  these  crimes ;  but  this  should  not  be 
done  until  after  the  pupil  has  been  entered  to  and  become  fond 
of  game,  so  that  it  is  essential  to  enter  a  hare-chaser  where 
there  are  no  hares,  and  a  chicken-killer  where  there  are  no 
roosters.  The  love  of  one  kind  of  game  is  half  a  cure  of  a 
too  energetic  fondness  for  another,  and  in  order  to  set  up  this 
love  of  game  to  its  fullest  extent,  your  pupil  must  neither  see 


no  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

hare  nor  think  hare  until  the  entry  on  game  is  complete.  If 
you  thrash  one  minute  for  chasing  chickens,  the  next  your 
pupil  will  be  half-hearted  about  finding  partridges,  and  will 
probably  blink  them  when  found. 

The  author  was  very  successful  at  field  trials,  and  in 
having  perfectly  obedient  high  rangers  of  wonderful  courage 
and  endurance,  and  this  success  was  attained  on  the  principle 
of  never  giving  the  pupils  a  chance  to  do  wrong  until  they 
were  well  established  in  the  practice  of  doing  right.  That  is 
to  say,  until  they  would  quarter  fast  and  freely,  and  find  and 
point  game  without  caution,  and  back  each  other  at  any 
distance,  they  were  not  tempted  by  the  sight  or  scent  of  hares, 
or  not  by  intention.  Afterwards  they  have  to  learn  to  hunt 
for  partridges  in  the  midst  of  hares  and  with  the  scent  of 
them  everywhere,  and  it  is  only  by  their  extra  fondness  for 
winged  game  that  they  will  hunt  across  and  across  the  foot 
scent  of  dozens  of  hares  without  taking  any  notice  of  it,  and 
will  nevertheless  point  the  body  scent  of  a  hare  when  they  find 
the  beast  in  its  seat. 

All  this  comes  to  the  high-couraged  dog  practically  by 
nature,  provided  the  breaker  begins  at  the  right  end  of  the 
education  and  takes  step  by  step,  as  suggested  here  in  default 
of  a  better  method.  There  will  be  no  shouting  and  storming, 
or  whipcord  and  wailing,  but  a  steady  progress  towards 
perfection,  granting  always  that  the  pupil  has  nose,  sense,  pace, 
and  stamina. 

Pointing  and  backing  may  or  may  not  come  naturally 
when  the  youngster  finds  that  he  cannot  catch  his  birds  after 
a  few  tries,  but  they  are  easily  encouraged  to  come  sooner  by 
the  use  of  the  voice  on  the  hand-broken  pupil,  or  by  the  use  of 
the  check  cord.  It  is,  however,  just  as  well  to  let  a  puppy  chase 
the  birds  until  he  naturally  points  them.  This  is  education  of 
the  best  kind  in  "  locating  "  the  game,  which  implies  the  quick 
recognition  of  the  difference  between  body  and  foot  scents  of 
birds.  In  the  same  way  it  is  a  good  plan  to  let  a  puppy  run  in 
a  few  times  to  a  pointing  dog  to  flush  and  chase  his  game. 
This  is  not  doing  wrong,  for  up  to  this  stage  the  dog  will  have 


POINTERS  AND  SETTERS  iii 

received  no  intimation  that  chasing  game  and  flushing  it  are 
wrong,  except  that  hereditary  instinct  may  prompt  the  puppy 
to  point  and  also  to  back. 

It  is  not  well  to  insist  upon  instant  dropping  to  wing,  until 
a  young  dog  has  learnt  how  to  point  steadily  and  to  draw  up 
boldly  to  the  game  at  the  side  of  his  breaker.  This  becomes 
a  nerve-trying  task  if  a  sudden  rush  of  wings  is  also  associated 
with  orders  to  "drop,"  and  it  is  well  to  confirm  the  natural 
attitude  on  point,  which  will  generally  be  beautiful,  before 
running  a  risk  of  the  young  dog  learning  to  confuse  the  point 
with  the  order  to  drop  to  wing. 

The  rush  in,  on  the  rise  of  game,  is  better  first  checked  by 
the  hand  upon  the  collar,  or  on  the  cord,  if  one  is  used. 

There  is  no  use  in  calling  "  To-ho  "  to  a  pointing  dog,  or  in 
using  any  words  of  caution.  A  broken  dog  requires  no  caution, 
and  a  partly  broken  or  unbroken  one  is  to  be  taught  to  rely 
upon  his  nose,  and  not  on  the  breaker's  voice,  for  his  knowledge 
of  when  he  should  point.  If  the  breaker  knows  best,  where  is 
the  use  of  the  dog?  If  the  latter  points  or  draws  and  then 
moves  on,  let  him  do  it ;  it  is  educational,  and  one  mistake  may 
prevent  a  hundred  ;  but  if  you  "  to-ho "  a  false  point  you  are 
making  a  bad  dog  by  it,  and  if  you  "  to-ho "  when  there  is 
game  you  are  teaching  the  dog  that  you  are  going  to  tell  him 
when  to  point,  and  that  you  certainly  cannot  judge  of  by  the 
dog's  manner  if  he  does  not  know  himself. 

One  of  the  principal  things  to  teach  is  quartering,  and  this  is 
often  the  natural  outcome  of  walking  directly  up  wind  with 
your  pupil.  It  is  generally  instinctive  to  the  well-bred  dog  to 
cross  the  wind  to  and  fro.  But  this  natural  instinct  will  be 
unhinged  by  any  change  of  direction,  so  that  a  breaker  who 
started  his  puppy  in  different  and  changing  methods,  in  regard 
to  the  wind,  would  find  him  ranging,  but  not  quartering,  and 
would  observe  the  puppy  at  the  end  of  a  cast  as  likely  to  turn 
down  wind  as  up.  For  this  reason,  until  a  confirmed  range  has 
been  established  by  walking  into  the  wind,  with  the  puppy  beat- 
ing from  side  to  side  of  his  breaker,  no  other  method  of  beating  a 
field  should  be  attempted.     Even  with  the  precaution  of  always 


112  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

walking  into  the  wind,  the  puppy  is  not  unlikely  to  turn  down 
wind  at  one  end  or  the  other  of  his  cast.  That  is  a  bad  fault 
in  itself,  and  bespeaks  flighty  disposition,  and  a  bad  nose  besides. 
There  is  always  scent  of  kinds,  we  may  suppose,  up  wind  of  the 
puppy,  which  ought  to  turn  his  investigating  nose  into  the 
wind  instead  of  the  other  way,  as  so  often  happens.  The 
breaker  may  be  troubled  to  correct  this  habit,  but,  as  it  is 
partly  owing  to  the  dog's  love  of  his  breaker  that  he  forgets  the 
game  and  turns  back,  it  can  be  cured  by  making  the  puppy 
more  fond  of  finding  game,  and  by  tiring  him,  until  he  has  to 
think  of  the  nearest  way.  But  as  for  other  reasons  tiring  a 
puppy  in  the  breaking  season  is  bad,  when  no  game  is  being 
shot,  the  trouble  can  be  overcome  by  the  breaker  walking  near 
the  hedge  on  the  side  of  the  field  the  pupil  turns  the  wrong 
way,  and  then,  by  the  teacher  making  haste  as  the  puppy 
approaches  that  side,  he  will  be  automatically  turned  the  right 
way.  Strangely,  most  puppies  turn  wrong  at  one  end  and  not 
at  the  other.  If  they  turn  wrong  at  both  ends,  they  are  probably 
hopeless  fools  that  are  not  worth  breaking. 

A  want  of  good  "backing"  may  be  very  common  from 
many  different  causes.  It  generally  comes  from  an  absence 
of  interest  in  the  point  of  another  dog,  and  consequently  is 
more  noticed  in  spring  breaking  than  in  autumn  shooting. 
If  dogs  are  left  to  themselves  in  autumn,  they  will  nearly  always 
back,  or  run  in  and  take  another's  point.  The  latter  is 
objectionable,  and  may  cause  flushing  by  either  dog,  or  by 
both.  But  it  shows  interest  in  the  point,  and  that  is  what  the 
breaker  has  to  work  upon.  In  the  spring  breaking  not 
infrequently  a  puppy  will  go  half  a  mile  round  in  order  to  avoid 
being  obliged  to  see  and  back  a  point.  That  is  because 
nothing  of  excitement  ever  comes  of  a  back  before  the  shooting 
season,  and  in  order  to  make  a  perfect  backer  of  a  dog  of  this 
character  (one  that  is  obviously  plucky  and  no  fool)  he  must 
have  his  interest  created  in  the  other's  point.  This  is  very 
easy  to  accomplish.  One  of  the  chief  causes  of  bad  backing 
is,  naturally,  false  pointing.  Like  the  man  who  is  always 
crying   "Wolf!"   the  imaginative   dog   is   not   believed  by  his 


POINTERS  AND  SETTERS  113 

fellows,  and  when  pointing  dogs  are  made  to  back  up  false 
points  they  perform  the  operation  as  an  act  of  unwilling 
obedience,  and  do  not  assume  those  attitudes  that  are  so  pleasing 
in  the  willing  dog.  It  is  therefore  quite  impossible  to  have 
good  backing  in  a  brace  of  dogs,  if  one,  or  both,  false  point.  But 
there  is  a  way  in  which  a  useless  false  pointer  (and  they  all 
are  useless)  can  be  made  to  give  a  good  lesson  in  backing  and 
one  not  easily  forgotten,  that  should  not  be  often,  if  at  all, 
repeated.  It  is  a  trick  on  the  dog  to  be  educated,  and  as  such 
must  not  be  found  out,  otherwise  its  virtue  will  be  gone. 

The  plan  is  to  get  a  wing-clipped  partridge  and  to  fasten 
to  its  wing  a  leather  strap,  and  to  this  latter  a  string  of 
20  yards  length  with  a  peg  at  its  end,  around  which  the  string 
can  be  wound.  All  together  can  be  put  into  a  cartridge  bag,  for 
choice  one  of  waterproofed  canvas,  because  it  is  not  certain 
whether,  in  any  other  sort,  the  dog  will  discover  what  is  being 
carried  on  the  shoulder  of  his  trainer,  and  it  is  important  he 
should  not  discover.  Then  it  is  necessary  to  hunt  the  pro- 
spective backer  with  the  false  pointer.  The  latter  will  soon 
get  a  point,  which  the  puppy  will  ignore  or  investigate.  In 
either  case,  wait  until  the  pupil  has  done  the  field  and  comes 
back ;  he  will  then  again  see  the  false  point,  and  before  he  gets 
down  wind  of  it  he  must  be  dropped  by  hand.  He  is  by  this 
time  "cock  sure"  his  companion  is  pointing  nothing;  but  in  his 
absence  you  have  unrolled  the  string  from  your  partridge  and 
put  the  peg  in  the  ground  at  a  place  up  wind  of  the  point- 
ing dog,  but  down  wind  of  the  spot  where  you  intend  to  drop 
the  pupil.  You  have  taken  the  partridge  out  of  its  bag,  and, 
having  placed  its  head  under  its  wing,  you  have  given  it  two  or 
three  swings  round,  so  as  to  make  it  giddy.  Then  you  have 
placed  it  on  the  ground  lying  on  that  wing  under  which  is  its 
head,  and  there  you  have  left  it.  It  will  lie  quite  still  for  a 
quarter  of  an  hour,  if  need  be.  Having  gone  back  to  the  peg, 
which  must  be  between  the  partridge  and  your  young  dog  for 
obvious  reasons,  you  give  the  string  a  snatch,  and  up  flutters 
the  partridge  in  full  view.  The  bird  will  make  a  racket 
when    he   finds   himself  caught,  and  will  flutter  a  good  deal. 


114  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

When  you  are  quite  sure  your  dog  will  not  join  in  the  chase, 
you  will  make  as  much  fuss  about  catching  the  bird  as  possible. 
You  will  not  let  the  puppy  see  what  you  do  when  you  return 
the  bird  to  the  bag,  and  you  will  not  let  the  young  dog  go  down 
wind  of  the  spot  on  which  the  partridge  has  been  fluttering.  A 
clever  dog  will  detect  what  has  happened  if  you  do  either,  and 
will  take  no  interest  afterwards  if  it  should  be  necessary  to 
repeat  the  lesson.  After  this,  go  straight  home  with  the  dogs 
in  couples,  and  next  day  have  out  for  the  young  one  a  better 
companion,  that  will  not  false  point.  It  is  twenty  to  one  that 
the  first  point  made  in  the  sight  of  the  youngster  will  be 
backed  with  all  the  vivacity  of  a  point.  In  this  way  you  will 
discover  that  one  good  lesson,  properly  given  with  no  mistake  in 
it,  will  do  more  than  a  year's  drudgery  in  stopping,  scolding,  and 
whipping,  when  the  pupil  ought  to  back. 

There  are  many  pointers  and  setters  that  will  back  naturally, 
but  this  trait  almost  implies  that  they  have  not  as  much  capacity 
for  finding  game  as  the  neighbours  that  they  back  up  in  their 
points.  Indeed,  the  better  the  dog  is  naturally,  the  greater  is 
the  difficulty  in  persuading  him  to  a  spirit  of  diffidence. 
For  these  very  good  animals  the  plan  has  been  found  the  most 
useful  by  the  author,  and  a  triumph  of  breaking  is  to  make  a 
perfect  backer  of  a  dog  so  good  that  he  rarely  sees  a  point, 
because  he  finds  nine-tenths  of  the  game  himself.  In  order  to 
do  it,  there  is  a  necessity  for  reducing  his  own  estimation  of 
himself,  and  luckily  this  can  be  done  in  the  manner  related 
without  in  the  smallest  degree  reducing  the  finding  powers  and 
ranging  energy  of  the  most  superior  dogs. 

The  Uses  of  Field  Trials  for  Pointers  and  Setters 

Once  in  a  decade  it  is  possible  to  see  at  a  field  trial  a  bit  of 
work  so  good  that  it  is  safe  to  say  the  doer  of  it  will  win  the 
stake — it  is  safe,  although  when  the  opinion  is  formed  the  rest 
of  the  entries  have  not  been  seen  at  work.  It  would  not  be  safe 
to  say  so  when  acting  as  judge,  or  to  act  upon  any  such  notion. 
But  the  writer  has  ventured   the  opinion  on  several  occasions 


POINTERS  AND  SETTERS  ti5 

when  others  have  been  judging,  and  has  always  been  right. 
The  occasions  arise  only  in  those  rare  circumstances  when  the 
scent  is  as  good  as  can  be,  and  the  dog  does  things  that  only 
the  very  best  can  do  in  the  most  favourable  circumstances. 

Generally  it  is  unsafe  to  form  any  opinions  except  by 
comparing  the  work  of  one  dog  with  that  of  another  at  the  same 
time  and  place.  That  is  what  field  trials  enable ;  and  it  does 
not  follow  that  when  only  moderate  work  is  done  at  them  that 
the  doers  are  only  ordinary.  Field  trials  are  often  held  in 
conditions  of  scent  and  weather  when  the  wise  shooter  would  go 
home.  The  competitors  at  these  meetings  are  always  picked 
dogs  at  home,  and  have  generally  beaten  "  good  trial  horses  " 
before  they  show  in  public.  But  when  shooters  go  to  a  trial 
and  unfavourably  compare  what  they  see  there  to  experience 
at  home,  they  may  be  right,  but  whenever  this  comparison  has 
given  them  confidence  enough  to  enter  dogs  the  latter  have 
invariably  been  disgraced,  unless  they  happened  to  be  of  field 
trial  winning  blood.  This  really  answers  the  question  as  to 
what  use  these  institutions  are. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  by  no  means  the  most  experienced 
field  trial  men  who  have  the  best  chance  of  victory,  provided 
the  canine  blood  is  the  same  for  all  competitors. 

What  natural  selection  and  the  survival  of  the  fittest  has 
done  for  the  fox  and  other  scent-hunting  animals,  field  trial 
selection  has  done  for  pointers  and  setters  since  the  first  public 
trial  was  held  in  1865.  It  is  not  contended  that  working  dogs 
have  improved  over  the  whole  of  this  period,  but  the  vast 
superiority  of  the  field  trial  breeds  over  others  shows  what  all 
would  have  declined  to  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  institutions 
that  annually  indicate  the  best. 

But  during  the  last  half-dozen  years  there  has  been  a  general, 
and  it  is  said  unaccountable,  lack  of  good  brace  work  at  the 
field  trials.  The  author  has  satisfied  himself  of  the  reason  of 
this  strange  lack  of  the  highest  exhibition  of  breaking  at  a  time 
when  the  dogs  arc  higher  broken  and  more  credit  is  given  for 
breaking  than  ever  before.  This  appears  paradoxical,  but  the 
fact  is  that  the  premium  on  high  breaking  has  led  to  the  choice 


ii6  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

of  dogs  as  sires  and  dams  that  are  easy  to  break,  and  this  again 
to  the  discounting  of  courage.  Some  worthy  usurper,  who 
became  a  rightful  monarch,  is  said  to  have  watched  a  spider 
attempt  for  nine  times  to  fasten  his  web  upon  a  coveted  spot 
and  succeed  in  the  end.  To  hunt  a  brace  of  dogs  properly,  it  is 
necessary  to  have  material  as  persevering  as  the  only  spider  in 
history.  What  is  required  is  that  your  dogs  should  find  all  the 
game.  In  order  that  this  should  be  done,  they  must  beat  all  the 
ground,  and  there  is  always  one  corner  in  a  field  that  nature 
induces  the  dogs  to  leave  behind.  The  corner  to  right  or  left 
of  the  spot  at  which  the  dogs  are  started  is  sure  to  be  slightly 
down  wind  of  the  starting-place.  The  natural  tendency  is  to  in- 
vestigate up  wind,  and  it  may  be  necessary  for  a  breaker  to  start 
his  dogs  ten  or  twenty  times,  and  to  call  them  back  as  often, 
before  he  can  make  them  understand  that  they  are  to  "  sink 
the  wind,"  are  to  drop  back,  as  it  were,  behind  it,  and  do  the 
usually  neglected  corner  before  pressing  forward  and  investigat- 
ing the  scent  of  game  that  is  probably  all  the  time  coming  from 
upwind  of  them.  But  it  is  only  the  very  highest-couraged  dogs 
that  can  be  expected  to  give  cheerful  obedience  during  the  con- 
stant interference  that  the  teaching  of  this  useful  lesson  involves. 
The  point  the  author  wishes  to  make  is,  that  it  is  necessary  to 
breed  for  courage  and  break  for  docility,  and  that  this  is 
exactly  contrary  to  the  breeding  for  docility  that  has  been  done. 
This  process,  which  has  been  intended  to  improve  breaking,  has 
eliminated  the  best  brace  work  and  the  best  quartering. 

It  is  not  intended  to  convey  the  idea  that  very  close 
quartering  is  a  good  feature.  The  dog  should  fully  occupy  his 
time,  and  range  to  the  capacity  of  his  nose.  To  say  a  dog  is 
going  too  wide  may  easily  be  a  great  mistake.  It  is  often  said 
that  a  pointer  or  setter  misses  ground,  but  although  some 
people  think  that  game  cannot  be  missed  if  ground  is  beaten  in 
geometric  figures,  with  parallel  lines  near  together,  it  is  often 
to  be  observed  that  those  which  most  obviously  leave  no  ground 
behind  them  are  just  those  that  leave  birds  behind  them.  If 
we  could  only  smell  as  dogs  do  for  ten  minutes,  we  should 
understand  them  much  better.     It  seems  wonderful  that  these 


POINTERS  AND  SETTERS  117 

animals  can  often  detect  a  pair  of  little  partridges  at  150  to  200 
yards  away,  while,  even  in  our  own  hands,  we  men  cannot  smell 
the  birds  at  all.  The  variety  in  the  olfactory  powers  of  the  dog 
sinks  almost  at  one  end  to  that  of  the  man,  but  at  the  other  is 
entirely  beyond  his  power  of  thinking.  Consequently,  when  we 
set  any  limitation  on  the  width  of  ranging,  or  the  width  between 
the  parallels  in  the  range,  we  are  often  asking  the  dogs  to  beat 
the  ground  twice  or  three  times,  which  is  opposed  to  the  best 
canine  nature.  The  author  is  careless  how  much  ground  dogs 
leave  behind  provided  they  leave  no  game  behind.  Consequently, 
if  they  start  fairly,  so  as  to  get  the  wind  of  the  near  corners, 
they  may  be  assumed  to  know  the  measure  of  their  own  noses, 
and  to  beat  wide  or  narrow,  and  with  parallel  quarterings  near, 
or  far  apart,  as  necessary.  The  wider  in  both  cases  the  better, 
provided  they  leave  no  game  behind.  If  they  commit  this 
fault,  they  are  only  wild,  and  may  be  assumed  to  be  scamping 
their  work. 

It  has  often  happened  that  the  most  capable  dogs  in  a  stake 
have  run  great  risks  of  being  thrown  out  for  an  appearance  of 
scamping  their  ground,  when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  were 
leaving  no  game  behind,  and  knew  it.  This  generally  happens 
when  the  scent  is  extra  good  and  the  dogs  know  that  they  can 
take  what  are  regarded  as  liberties  in  their  range.  But  when 
scent  is  bad,  on  hot  August  days,  and  the  pollen  is  flying  from 
the  heather  bloom,  these  wide  rangers  will  be  narrow  enough, 
and  will  be  the  only  dogs  that  can  find  at  all.  Then  those  that 
have  had  for  safety  to  hunt  in  narrow  parallels  in  good  scent, 
will  be  as  unable  as  a  man  to  smell  a  grouse.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  the  writer,  when  judging  at  a  field  trial,  would 
never  condemn  wide  or  forward  ranging  unless  game  was 
actually  proved  to  be  left  behind.  Quartering  is  the  means  to 
an  end,  and  not  the  end  itself,  and  it  was  far  more  effectively 
done  at  field  trials  years  ago,  before  people  began  to  treat  it 
as  an  end  in  itself.  Since  then  brace  work  has  declined,  and 
brace  work  had  always  been  that  in  which  it  was  expected,  and 
happened,  that  the  winners  should  find  everything  on  their 
ground,  and  neither  flush  nor  miss  anything. 


ii8  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

The  best  natural  quarterers  (or  dogs,  for  that  matter)  will 
invariably  be  those  that  alter  their  methods  to  suit  the  occasion. 
When  game  is  scarce,  they  will  hunt  wide,  because,  in  the  absence 
of  the  scent  of  game  pervading  the  atmosphere,  they  can  detect 
the  presence  of  the  game  at  far  greater  distances  than  when  the 
scent  is  everywhere. 

They  will  hunt  wide  also  in  good  scent. 

Conversely,  in  bad  scent  they  will  hunt  closely,  and  when 
birds  are  plentiful,  or  scattered  and  lying  close,  they  will  do  so 
also,  and  to  the  author  this  variation  of  beat  to  suit  the  occasion 
is  by  far  the  greatest  proof  of  nose  and  sense. 

Everybody  likes  to  see  a  dog  draw  nicely  and  sharply  up  a 
good  distance,  and  point,  knowing  precisely  where  the  game  is ; 
but  these  appearances  are  often  deceptive.  Nobody  knows  how 
far  the  birds  have  run,  or  how  much  of  the  draw  was  due  to  the 
foot  scent  and  how  little  to  the  body  scent.  These  appearances 
of  good  nose  have  to  be  taken  in  conjunction  with  the  manner 
of  beating  the  ground,  before  a  just  estimate  of  the  olfactory 
powers  can  be  quickly  formed.  This  is  made  all  the  more 
difficult,  because  a  dog  of  poor  courage  will  generally  draw  to 
game  as  soon  as  he  detects  foot  scents,  whereas  the  highest- 
couraged  and  best  quarterers  will  often  gallop  over  those  scents, 
recognising  but  scouting  the  temptation,  and  will  only  draw  up 
to  body  scent. 

The  difference  between  foot  and  body  scents  is  not  very  well 
understood  by  anyone  except  the  dog,  and  not  always  by 
him.  Very  much  nonsense  has  been  written  on  the  subject. 
The  author  has  noticed  comments  in  the  Press  showing  that 
the  writers  believed  the  foot  scent  to  be  an  emanation  from 
the  feet  in  contact  with  the  ground.  The  foot  scent  is  the  path 
of  scent  left  by  an  animal  that  has  moved  away.  The  author 
has  observed  it  left  by  a  flying  grouse,  and  also  by  a  diving  otter. 
In  neither  case  could  the  feet  have  had  anything  to  do  with  the 
matter.  But  that  does  not  help  us  to  know  how  the  dog  detects 
the  difference  between  the  volatile  matter  that  comes  direct  from 
the  game  to  the  dog's  nose,  and  the  same  exudation  that  first  hangs 
in  the  air,  upon  the  water,  bubbles  up  from  the  water,  clings  to 


POINTERS  AND  SE'lTERS  119 

vegetation,  or  to  earth,  before  it  reaches  the  dog's  nose.  It  is 
obviously  not  a  question  of  strength  of  scent,  for  a  dog  having 
missed  a  brace  of  close-crouched  partridges  will  instantly  find 
the  spot  they  rose  from  after  they  have  gone,  proving  that,  often 
enough,  the  foot  scent  is  very  much  the  stronger. 

The  author  has  no  opinion  how  it  is  that  some  dogs  detect 
the  difference  between  foot  and  body  scent  instantly,  and  others 
cannot  do  it.  It  cannot  be  that  one  is  more  the  breath  of  the 
hunted  animal  than  the  other,  because  probably  the  otter  evolves 
no  scent  except  breath  when  under  water,  and  his  line  is  as 
huntable  to  the  swimming  pack  as  that  of  the  land  quarry  to 
the  running  hounds.  Possibly  the  actual  heat  of  the  volatile 
exudation  may  have  something  to  say  to  the  question.  What- 
ever the  difference  consists  of,  it  is  only  some  dogs  that  instantly 
recognise  it.  These  may  or  may  not  be  animals  able  to  detect  a 
scent  a  long  way  off  No  great  wonder  should  be  occasioned 
by  the  inability  to  be  certain  :  how  often  do  human  beings 
recognise  a  picture,  or  a  taste,  without  being  able  to  give  either 
a  name  ? 

No  attempt  will  be  made  to  prove  what  canine-detected 
scent  is,  except  to  this  extent.  It  must  be  something  that  our 
own  olfactory  nerves  work  above,  or  below.  Just  as  there  are 
noises  we  cannot  hear  and  colours  we  cannot  see,  so  there  are 
doubtless  scents  of  great  power  that  we  nevertheless  cannot 
detect  even  slightly.  A  dog  will  sometimes  find  and  appear  to 
locate  correctly  a  partridge,  or  rather  a  pair  of  them,  at  200 
yards.  We  may  take  those  birds  in  hand  and  put  them  to  our 
noses,  and  even  then  we  cannot  detect  the  faintest  scent  of  any 
kind.  Scent  is  supposed  to  spread  as  the  square  of  the  distance, 
so  that  600  feet  squared  would  represent  the  difference  in  degree 
of  the  scent  of  the  bird  in  hand  and  that  of  the  bird  600  feet 
away.  That  is  to  say,  one  would  be  360,000  times  as  strong  as 
the  other,  and  we  cannot  detect  the  strong,  whereas  the  dog  finds 
the  weaker  one.  Surely  this  is  enough  to  show  that  it  is  no 
question  of  degree  at  all,  but  of  something  else.  Possibly  the 
strong  scent  of  deer  and  fox  that  we  often  do  detect  is  misleading 
us  into  the  belief  that  we  can  sometimes  smell  what  hounds  run 


I20  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

by.  On  the  other  hand,  the  author  has  noticed  that  when  he 
can  smell  a  fox  strongest  hounds  cannot  smell  him  at  all,  and 
consequently  there  is  more  confirmation  that  what  the  canine 
race  hunts  by  the  human  nose  cannot  always  detect  in  any 
degree  whatever. 

It  has  often  been  affirmed  that  game  birds  lose  their  scent 
during  incubation,  and  there  is  no  doubt  they  lose  a  good  deal 
of  it.  Hares  and  vixens  heavy  with  young  are  said  to  have  a 
similar  protection  from  their  enemies.  But  in  all  cases  there  is 
scent,  only  it  is  different,  and  not  easily  recognised  by  the  dogs 
kept  for  hunting  it.  On  the  other  hand,  the  nests  that  the 
pointer  and  setter  cannot  find,  the  terrier,  with  a  worse  nose, 
often  does  discover,  much  to  the  gamekeeper's  grief;  and  the 
foxes  find  great  numbers  of  these  nests  also,  and  they  do  not  do 
it  by  sight. 

A  study  of  the  matter  is  greatly  complicated  by  the  fact  that 
game  birds  give  out  no  scent  when  crouching,  fearful,  under  a 
falcon,  and  this  hawk  most  certainly  does  not  rely  upon 
his  nose  to  help  him  discover  his  prey.  To  understand  why 
the  power  of  retaining  the  scent  should  have  been  evolved, 
by  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  it  is  necessary  to  go  back  to  the 
wilderness  stage  of  our  islands.  Probably  the  first  gamekeeper's 
duties  were  performed  by  the  slayers  of  wolves,  at  any  rate  in 
historic  times,  and  we  have  no  occasion  to  try  and  take  a  peep 
at  the  cave  bear  in  his  British  den.  The  country  was  much  more 
wooded  than  it  is  now,  and  it  is  clear  that  those  falcons  that 
only  kill  in  the  air  would  go  hungry  in  woodlands  had  it  not 
been  for  the  earth-crawling  vermin  that  flushed  game  for  them. 

The  falconers  are  now  proud  of  teaching  a  hawk  to  "  wait  on  " 
in  the  air  while  a  pointer  is  at  work,  but  if  falcons  ever  hunted 
in  a  brushwood  country  in  a  state  of  nature,  that  is  exactly 
what  they  would  have  had  to  do  for  their  friends  the  wolves, 
since  they  could  not  flush  for  themselves,  and  could  not  kill 
until  a  flush  had  occurred.  It  is  consequently  quite  likely  that 
waiting  on  is  a  latent  instinct  in  the  long-winged  falcons,  and 
equally,  therefore,  retaining  the  scent  was  a  protection  against 
beast  and  bird  alike. 


POINTERS  AND  SETTERS  121 

It  is  a  confirmation  of  this  theory,  that  the  birds  that  in 
incubation  secure  safety  by  watchfulness,  such  as  the  lapwings, 
retain  their  scent  neither  in  incubation  nor  at  any  other  time, 
but  exude  it  while  they  are  hatching. 


The  Purchase  of  Pointers  and  Setters 

Most  people  have  to  buy  their  dogs  for  the  moors,  or  to 
hire  them.  During  June  and  July  large  numbers  are  annually 
sent  up  to  Aldridge's,  in  St.  Martin's  Lane.  There  are  a 
very  few  general  rules  which  may  save  a  buyer  from  dis- 
appointment. 

In  nearly  all  cases  the  vendors  offer  to  show  dogs  on  game 
before  the  sales.  It  is  obviously  the  best  way  to  go,  or  send, 
and  have  them  viewed  upon  game.  The  first  question  always 
to  be  asked  about  young  dogs  is  whether  they  are  gun-shy, 
and  in  a  trial  when  no  game  is  being  shot  it  is  wise  to  use  the 
gun,  but  not  fair  to  use  it  over  much.  A  dog  that  has  been 
used  to  having  a  shot  or  two  fired  over  it  during  an  hour's 
breaking  is  not  necessarily  ready  to  undergo  the  bewildering 
experience  of  a  dozen  discharges  in  close  proximity  and 
in  quick  succession  when  no  intention  is  obvious.  Even  on 
the  moors,  on  the  1 2th  of  August,  the  use  of  the  gun  should 
be  tempered  with  discretion,  whether  the  puppies  are  inclined  to 
be  nervous  or  not.  Besides,  this  is  obvious  wisdom  from  another 
point  of  view.  Your  puppy  will  do  as  much  work  as  an  equally 
well-made  old  dog  if  you  "  nurse  "  him  ;  but  if,  on  the  contrary, 
you  allow  him  to  run  himself  out  at  the  first  start,  he  will  soon 
do  it,  and  will  not  "  come  "  again  that  day. 

Probably  the  best  way  is  to  make  a  rule,  for  the  few  early 
days,  always  to  take  every  puppy  up  after  the  first  find  and 
killing  of  grouse.  Allow  him  to  point  dead  and  make  a  fuss 
over  the  birds  killed,  but  then  have  him  led  away  300  yards 
behind  the  firing  line,  where  every  shot  heard  will  add  to  his 
anxiety  to  make  more  acquaintance  with  the  gun,  provided  your 
dog-boy  knows  how  not  to  be  severe.  In  an  hour,  probably,  the 
young  dog  will  be  made  for  life  by  this  treatment ;  but,  as  one 


122  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

can  never  tell,  it  is  safest  to  proceed  thus  for  a  few  days,  and 
meantime  the  puppy  may  have  fresh  short  runs  at  intervals  of 
an  hour  or  two.  This  refers  to  highly  broken  puppies,  and  not 
to  the  wild,  sport-spoiling  sort.  The  former  are  never  so  good 
as  when  they  have  the  keen  edge  on ;  the  latter  are  never 
worse  than  with  it  on.  Such  dogs  are  too  wild  to  be  of  use 
all  the  morning,  and  too  tired  all  the  afternoon,  so  that  the 
points  one  has  to  make  sure  of  in  purchasing  pointers  and 
setters  are — 

Absence  of  gun-shyness. 

Steady  pointing. 

Freedom  from  chase. 

Dropping  to  wing,  gun,  and  hand. 

A  fair  amount  of  ability  to  go,  with  a  prospect  of  staying 
when  in  working  condition. 

A  good  nose. 

Answering  to  whistle. 

With  these  qualities  good  sport  will  be  assured,  although 
the  most  particular  will  require  in  addition  good  backing.  It 
is  the  quality  most  often  absent  in  good  puppies,  and  luckily 
can  most  easily  be  dispensed  with.  There  are  hundreds  of 
shooters  over  dogs  who  never  saw  good  backing,  as  most  people 
are  satisfied  when  the  dog  behind  takes  up  an  attitude  of 
steadiness,  and  they  do  not  ask  unpleasant  questions  as  to  its 
nature.  In  practice  a  double  point  is  often  as  good  as  a  back, 
and  it  is  not  difficult  to  understand  how  some  people  may  get 
to  prefer  that  the  dog  behind  is  on  the  spot.  For  one  thing,  he 
is  then  safe  from  doing  undetected  damage,  and  is  ready  to 
assist  in  roding  out  close-lying  birds  as  soon  as  his  companion 
needs  help. 

Between  this  and  the  most  striking  field  trial  backing 
there  is  a  happy  middle  course,  which  used  to  be  considered  the 
most  perfect,  and  is  so  now,  but  it  would  be  unfair  to  expect  it 
when  strange  dogs  meet  each  other  at  field  trials.  It  consists 
in  a  perfect  sympathy  with  the  pointing  dog,  so  that  the  animal 
which  has  not  got  the  scent  feels  it  through  the  "  thought 
reading"   of    his   companion.     One    cannot    suppose   there   is 


POINTERS  AND  SETTERS  123 

conscious  imitation  of  movement,  yet  so  perfect  has  occasionally 
been  the  imitation  of  the  movements  of  the  advance  dog  by  the 
one  behind,  that,  step  for  step,  stop  for  stop,  crouch  for  crouch, 
and  drop  for  drop,  the  one  has  copied  the  every  action  of  the 
other,  as  if  the  pointing  dog's  nervous  system  was  affecting  the 
muscles  of  both  inch  by  inch.  Not  only  has  this  been  so,  but 
the  hesitation  of  a  lifted  fore  leg  has  been  reflected  by  the 
image  behind.  This  kind  of  thing  generally  arises  from  two 
dogs  being  constantly  used  together,  being  particularly  equal, 
and  also  being  frequently  tired  in  their  work,  so  as  to  make  it 
habitual  for  one  to  be  glad  when  the  other  has  found  game. 
At  field  trials,  if  the  competing  dog  is  not  sorry  to  see  a 
competitor's  point,  his  master  probably  is  (it  may  mean  ;^ioo), 
and  the  feelings  of  the  man  are  apt  to  be  reflected  in  the  dog. 

By  "nursing"  a  team  of  dogs  in  the  way  mentioned  above, 
it  is  wonderful  how  few  will  keep  a  pair  of  guns  going  day  after 
day.  If  dogs  are  run  to  a  standstill  one  day,  they  will  want  a 
day's  rest  the  next,  and  the  fewer  dogs  a  shooter  can  get 
through  the  grouse  season  with,  the  better  and  more  experienced 
each  canine  servant  becomes.  Consequently,  economy  and 
excellence  go  hand  in  hand. 

The  better  to  further  both  designs,  the  buyer  should  have 
some  regard  for  make  and  shape,  and  a  minor  regard  for  size. 
The  dog-show  ideals  will  not  assist  much.  The  principal  wants 
of  a  working  dog,  to  enable  him  to  go  on  long,  and  day  after 
day,  are  good  shoulders.  The  nearer  the  tops  are  together  the 
better — indeed,  in  imitation  of  the  shape  of  a  good  hunter's 
withers  (that  is,  narrowing  as  they  approach  the  top  of  the 
back).  Powerful  muscles  in  the  hind  legs,  especially  in  the 
second  thighs,  big  hocks  set  low  down  and  well  bent  stifle 
joints,  but  not  necessarily  well  bent  hock  joints,  are  all 
essentials,  but  only  in  proportion  to  the  weight  to  be  moved. 
Big  fore  legs  below  the  knee  and  loins  the  same  width  from 
end  to  end — that  is,  with  no  dip  horizontally  or  vertically  in  the 
middle — is  part  of  the  formation  essential  to  stamina.  But,  after 
all,  the  only  point  wanted  is  proportion.  With  true  balance  the 
lighter  a  dog  weighs  the  better,  and  yet  the  bigger  he  is  the 


124  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

better  too.    This  is  only  saying  that  the  h'ghter  and  stronger  he 
is  for  his  size  the  better. 

If  it  is  impossible  to  see  dogs  out  before  auction  days  arrive, 
the  safest  way  is  to  pick  out  some  owner  who  sells  with  a  good 
description,  and  who  is  good  for  powder  and  shot  in  the  event 
of  a  mistake  being  made.  Then  the  buyer  has  what  amounts 
to  a  guarantee,  and  one  that  has  often  been  acted  upon.  But 
unless  the  purchase  is  of  well  seasoned  dogs,  that  have  been  the 
chief  helps  to  some  well-known  sportsmen,  it  is  always  safest  to 
go  exclusively  for  field  trial  blood. 

The  chances  are  that  young  dogs  of  this  blood  will  be  far 
better  than  their  owners  know,  and  will  come  on  in  a  surprising 
manner  after  a  little  shooting  over,  whereas  coarse-bred  dogs, 
that  have  been  shot  over  a  season,  will  be  going  back,  and  in 
most  cases  will  have  probably  learnt  some  bad  habits. 

Nobody  can  decide  for  another  how  many  dogs  will  do. 
The  men  differ  even  more  than  the  dogs.  Alternate  instead 
of  consecutive  days  on  the  moors  will  mean  half  the  dogs 
necessary  for  every  day  upon  the  "hull."  In  the  same  way  the 
number  may  be  decreased  again  by  half  if  the  shooting  does 
not  start  until  noon,  and  a  long  hour  is  taken  for  lunch,  and  the 
shooter  is  back  at  the  lodge  by  6  p.m. 

Other  men  will  begin  shooting  at  9  a.m.,  and  will  stop  work 
at  6.30  or  7  p.m.,  which  more  than  doubles  the  hours.  Then 
the  dogs  will  differ.  The  average  perhaps  will  not  now  do 
more  than  two  hours'  fast  work  during  the  day.  Nothing  is 
much  more  distressing  in  sport  than  a  tired  man  trusting  to  a 
weary  dog.  That  kind  of  thing  is  not  what  one  pays  big 
grouse  rents  for,  and  nothing  less  than  fast  work  is  likely  to 
satisfy  in  these  days. 

No  shooter  of  economic  mind  in  regard  to  canine  assistance 
does  well  to  permit  couples  to  be  used  on  shooting  days.  They 
take  half  a  day's  work  out  of  some  dogs,  and  a  good  deal  out 
of  all.  Pointers  and  setters  ought  to  be  taught  to  walk  at  heel 
without  couples,  and  are  all  the  better  for  being  sent  in  a  cart 
to  the  fixture.  Every  ounce  of  energy  should  be  conserved,  as 
with  a  Derby  horse.     If  dogs  are  really  broken,  they  cannot  be 


POINTERS  AND  SETTERS  125 

too  fresh.  Sometimes  they  are  more  fond  of  galloping  than 
finding  game,  and  then  the  best  thing  to  do  is  still  to  start 
them  fresh,  but  to  run  them  until  they  are  tired.  This  soon 
makes  them  glad  of  an  excuse  to  find  game.  On  the  other 
hand,  some  are  too  fond  of  pointing,  and  will  follow  up  any 
faint  scent,  leaving  ground  and  birds  right  and  left  behind  them, 
because  they  are  too  lazy  to  quarter.  They  are  not  nice  dogs, 
but  they  are  best  worked  very  fresh  and  only  for  short  spurts. 

The  author  has  often  been  asked  what  is  the  best  way  to 
treat  a  dog  that  false  points  and  draws  right  into  the  wind  as  if 
he  had  found  game,  when  he  only  thinks  he  may  have  done  so. 
Probably  the  best  way  is  to  walk  past  him  with  a  good  retriever 
at  heel,  one  on  which  reliance  can  be  placed  to  show  whether 
there  is  game  in  front  or  not.  This  saves  you  from  the 
necessity  of  recognising  a  false  point,  either  by  drawing  on  the 
dog  or  calling  him  off.  In  either  case  your  notice  would  do 
harm,  whereas  if  you  take  not  the  smallest  notice  of  such  points 
the  dog  will  soon  learn  to  rely  upon  himself,  if  he  has  any 
courage  at  all. 

There  is,  of  course,  a  great  demand  for  field  trial  breakers. 
Good  men  of  this  sort  always  get  good  posts,  but  sportsmen 
who  have  keepers  whom  they  would  like  to  see  better  handlers 
of  dogs  of  any  kind,  would  generally  gain  their  ends  by  sending 
their  men  first  to  look  on  at  field  trials,  then  buying  some  six- 
weeks-old  puppies  of  a  good  sort,  in  order  to  let  their  breakers 
compete  occasionally  at  these  events.  It  teaches  keepers  to 
view  dogs  in  quite  a  different  way,  and  they  cost  no  more  to 
keep  as  highly  broken  than  as  slovenly  unbroken  animals. 


THE  POINTER 

IN  his  beautiful  monograph  of  the  pointer,  Mr.  W.  Arkwright, 
of  Sutton  Scarsdale,  has  given  to  us  material  and  research 
which  settles  many  things,  and  enables  us  to  make  up  our 
minds  with  sufficient  certainty  for  our  own  satisfaction  upon 
many  more.  That  is  to  say,  any  of  us  who  take  the  trouble  to 
refer  to  Mr.  Arkwright's  pages  will  be  able  to  form  a  judgment 
for  ourselves  upon  the  origin  of  the  breed,  as  well  as  upon  the 
tendency  of  breeders,  for  the  last  century.  The  author  does  not 
propose  to  quote,  as  he  would  like  to,  from  those  pages.  The 
pointer  is  only  one  small  item  in  a  general  book  on  shooting, 
and  this  is  what  the  author  is  bidden  to  write  by  his  publisher. 

A  great  deal  was  known  about  the  pointer  before  Mr.  Ark- 
wright took  pen  in  hand,  and  the  views  about  to  be  expressed 
are  considered  opinions  after  reading  that  author's  work,  and 
passing  in  mental  review  the  breed  as  it  has  been  known  for 
the  last  half-century. 

The  author  became  possessed  of  his  first  pointer  about  i860. 
It  was  a  gift,  and  came  originally  from  the  kennels  of  the  Lord 
Derby  of  that  time.  It  was  a  coarse  dog  with  a  coarse  stern, 
so  that  if  Devonshire  men  introduced  foxhound  blood  in  the 
seventies  they  were  not  responsible  for  the  coarse  sterns,  or  not 
entirely. 

Mr.  William  Arkwright  holds  that  any  foxhound  blood  is 
bad ;  it  must  therefore  have  tried  him  very  highly  when  he 
discovered  that  all  pointers  are  the  descendants  of  hounds. 
Doubtless  there  is  a  difference  between  hounds,  and  possibly 
the  foxhound  is  the  last  kind  one  would  wish  a  pointer  to 
resemble  ;  but,  after  all,  a  hound's  business  is  to  catch  and  kill, 


THK    FAMOU 


FIELD    IKIAI.   WIXXKK   SHAMROCK    liFLOXOIXO   TO 
.MR.    ARKWRU.HT 


MR.   W.   .\RK.\\1 


SOl.OMOX  > 

OKT  UP  hii;hkr 


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THE  POINTER  127 

whatever  sub-title  he  may  claim,  and  consequently  it  follows 
that  pointers  were  evolved  from  dogs  whose  business  was  to 
catch  and  kill.  If,  therefore,  our  dogs  are  sufficiently  opposed 
in  instincts  to  their  ancestors,  there  can  only  be  a  sentimental 
objection  to  a  perceptible  external  trace  of  hound.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  half  the  pointers  seen  at  field  trials  have  too  much 
"point,"  and  not  one  in  fifty  too  little.  No  doubt  it  was  the 
tendency  for  the  natural  point  to  increase  in  every  generation 
that  caused  the  sportsmen  of  Colonel  Thornton's  period  (about 
1800  A.D.)  to  cross  with  the  foxhound. 

The  pointer  undoubtedly  came  to  this  country  both  from 
France  and  Spain.  The  former  was  a  light  made  and  the 
latter  a  heavy  dog.  They  were  apparently  not  related,  but 
both  became  the  ancestors  of  the  modern  pointer.  With  all 
this  chance  of  cross  breeding,  our  grandfathers  do  not  appear 
to  have  been  satisfied,  and  were  for  ever  trying  other  crosses 
to  improve  their  breeds.  Colonel  Thornton  had  a  remark- 
able dog  by  a  foxhound,  and  other  sportsmen  had  very 
celebrated  droppers — that  is,  crosses  between  pointer  and 
setter.  It  came  to  be  the  fashion  to  think  that  these  crosses 
never  perpetuated  their  own  merit  in  the  next  generation,  and 
they  got  a  bad  name  in  consequence.  Had  this  not  been  the 
case,  probably  no  pure  bred  setters  or  pointers  would  have 
been  handed  down  to  us,  and  perhaps  there  were  none  so 
handed  on.  It  seems  to  the  author  that  there  must  have 
been  ancestral  reasons  of  the  most  imperative  kind  for  the 
differences  as  found  in  noted  strains  of  pointers  in  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century. 

My  experience  has  shown  that  cross  breeding  does  not  of 
necessity  imply  equal  degrees  of  cross  blood  in  the  offspring. 
It  never  implies  half  and  half;  and  although  it  generally 
does  mean  cross  breeding  to  some  slight  extent,  that  slight 
cross  can  be  eradicated  in  future  generations  by  selection. 
Of  all  means  of  selection  by  externals  for  blood,  colour  and 
coat  are  the  most  trustworthy.  It  is  exceedingly  strange 
that  dogs  of  the  same  ancestry  but  of  different  colours  can 
be    bred    together    for    twenty  generations   and    never   blend 


128  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

colours  in  the  offspring.  This  blending  of  colour  happens  but 
very  rarely,  and  as  colour  is  more  or  less  indicative  of  blood, 
almost  certainly  for  one,  so  it  remains  through  many,  gene- 
rations. In  discussing  setters  the  author  has  had  occasion  to 
relate  more  fully  his  own  experience  of  this  remarkable 
tenacity  of  colour,  in  spite  of  colour  crossing,  and  also  to 
note  the  curious  fact  that  along  with  colour  is  inherited 
much  of  the  character  that  originally  belonged  to  or  accom- 
panied it. 

The  writer  would  therefore  divide  pointers  in  his  own 
mind  into  three  great  modern  families,  each  of  which  has 
both  the  Spanish  and  French  pointer  as  a  base.  These 
branches  are : — 

1.  Those  that  have  setter  indications,  including  the  majority 

of  lemon-and-white  ones,  and  those  of  the  "  ticked  " 
varieties. 

2.  Those  which  resemble  the  greyhound  in  formation  and 

in  fineness  of  stern,  and  have  a  tendency  to  have 
feet  like  the  greyhound.  They  are  often  whole- 
coloured  like  it  too. 

3.  Those  which  seem  to  trace  to  the  foxhound,  by  reason 

of  their  "  cat "  feet,  thick  coats,  and  coarse  sterns. 

Whether  the  origins  suggested  are  correct  or  not,  there  is 
a  very  great  difference  between  breeds  at  present,  and  some 
internal  qualities  seem  to  be  most  often  found  with  certain 
colours  and  formations.  For  instance,  the  "  dish  -  face " 
characteristic  of  the  setter  is  most  often  found  in  the  lemon- 
and-white  pointer.  The  "  Roman "  profile  characteristic  of 
the  hound  is  most  often  found  in  the  liver-and-white  sort, 
and  the  very  fine  stern  and  hare  feet,  the  stern  often  with  a 
tendency  to  curl  up,  is  found  most  often  in  the  whole-coloured 
pointers. 

Again,  a  tucked  -  up,  racing  appearance  is  generally  seen 
in  old  pictures  and  present-day  dogs  associated  with  the  whole 
or  self-coloured  pointers ;  a  high  or  foxhound  carriage  of  stern 
occurs  with  the   liver  -  and  -  white ;   and   long   backs   are  most 


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THE  POINTER  129 

often  seen  in  lemon-and-white  specimens.  The  long  backs 
have  been  partly  bred  out  of  the  setter,  but  he  formerly  shared 
them  with  his  collateral  relation  the  spaniel,  and  even  now 
he  is  a  longer  dog  than  the  pointer. 

Of  all  these  races  the  greyhound  type  is  the  most  perfectly 
formed  in  body.  The  dish-faced  lemon-and-white  kind  appear 
to  be  the  most  affectionate  (spaniel  -  like) ;  and  the  hardest 
workers,  with  the  hardest  constitutions,  the  author  believes  to 
be  the  liver  -  and  -  white  sort.  The  principal  colours  of  the 
original  French  and  Spanish  pointers  were  probably  black-and- 
white  and  liver-and-white,  some  of  them  having  very  little 
white,  so  that  it  is  not  suggested  that  the  supposed  crossing 
was  alone  responsible  for  the  colour. 

The  first  time  a  tendency  to  "  grey "  was  noticed  by  the 
author  was  in  the  "  ticked  "  pointer  Romp,  run  at  a  field  trial 
about  1870  in  Devonshire  by  Mr.  Brackenbury.  The  pedigree 
of  this  bitch  was,  to  say  the  least,  defective,  and  the  "  belton  " 
markings,  as  also  the  whole  conformation  of  the  animal,  was 
suggestive  of  the  setter.  Romp's  Baby,  a  descendant  of  the 
above  Romp  and  similar  in  markings,  was  also  setter-like  in 
build,  in  feet,  and  in  work.  The  aforesaid  Romp  laid  the 
foundation  for  the  best  race  of  pointers  in  America,  but  un- 
fortunately most  of  the  blood  has  been  lost  to  this  country. 
The  profuse  ticked  markings  are  rarely  seen,  but  when  they 
do  appear  it  is  easy  to  trace  the  character  of  the  Romp 
family. 

Amongst  all  the  pointers  and  setters  the  writer  has  seen 
he  would  be  puzzled  to  name  the  best,  but  he  can  say  without 
the  smallest  hesitation  that  Romp's  Baby  was  by  far  the  best 
small  one. 

Sir  Richard  Garth's  Drake  was  the  best  pointer  that  ever 
contested  a  field  trial,  in  the  author's  judgment.  He  was  a 
large  dog  of  the  liver-and-white  variety  described  above,  but 
with  a  little  of  the  body  formation  of  the  whole-coloured 
variety,  and  a  good  deal  of  the  dish-face  of  the  lemon-and- 
white  ones.  The  author  remembers  this  dog's  maternal 
grandsire,  Newton's  Ranger,  a  very  big  animal  of  great  refine- 
9 


I30  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

ment,  and  with  wonderful  length  of  head  and  neck.  There 
is  no  doubt  Drake  got  his  quality  from  here,  and  for  the 
rest  he  was  descended  from  the  kennels  of  Lords  Sefton, 
Lichfield,  Derby,  Mr.  Cornwall  Leigh,  and  Mr.  Edge,  and 
the  Stud  Book  gives  him  a  Spanish  pointer  in  tail-male.  He 
was  a  revolution  and  a  revelation  in  field  work,  proving  for 
the  first  time  that  the  utmost  care  was  to  be  had  with  racing 
speed  and  with  the  greatest  boldness.  Perhaps  it  is  wrong 
to  say  "was  to  be  had,"  for  all  these  qualities  in  a  pointer 
have  never  quite  been  collected  in  one  individual  since. 
Only  one  son  of  Drake  that  the  writer  saw  had  any  pretence 
to  his  sire's  speed,  and  that  one  appeared  to  have  no  nose 
whatever;  whereas  Drake  was  as  phenomenal  for  nose  as  for 
care,  speed,  and  boldness.  If  there  was  any  foxhound  in  this 
fine  liver-and-white  dog,  it  must  have  been  very  cleverly  bred 
out.  On  the  other  hand,  his  small  counterpart  Romp,  of 
the  blue  mottled  colour  with  tan  on  her  legs,  might  have 
suggested  hound,  but  not  foxhound,  as  much  as  setter,  by 
her  colour. 

On  the  e\^idence,  the  author  is  inclined  to  suggest  that  these 
two  wonderful  animals  owe  their  vigour  and  unique  qualities  to 
a  not  very  remote  cross  of  blood.  We  have  it  that  Drake's 
paternal  grandsire  was  a  Spanish  pointer,  and  we  have  Romp's 
appearance  and  colour  to  declare  her  no  pure  bred  pointer. 

The  next  best  performers  of  the  period,  but  with  a  great  gap 
between,  were  Mr.  Lloyd  Price's  Belle,  bred  by  Lord  Henry 
Bentinck,  but  without  pedigree  given,  and  Mr.  Sam  Price's 
Bang.  The  author  is  not  certain  whether  the  general  opinion 
is  that  Mr.  Sam  Price  went  to  the  foxhound,  and  that  Bang 
owed  his  substance  and  character  to  the  cross,  but  he  was 
certainly  different  in  type  from  those  other  Devonshire  pointers, 
Sancho  and  Chang,  that  won  on  the  show  bench  about  the  same 
period,  and  were  entirely  pointer-like. 

Without  in  any  way  insisting  upon  the  origins  of  the  different 
types  and  colours  above  described,  there  is  no  doubt  that  some 
difference  of  ancestry  at  a  remote  or  recent  period  has  been 
responsible  for  the  characteristics.     Consequently,  for  practical 


THE  POINTER  131 

purposes  and  for  breeding,  the  specimens  most  marked  with 
the  characteristics  peculiar  to  each  kind  may  be  treated  as 
distinct  strains  of  blood,  although  it  may  not  be  known  what 
that  blood  is.  To  make  the  author's  position  more  clear,  he 
would  say  that  if  a  lemon -and -white  and  a  whole-black 
pointer  came  in  the  same  litter  they  would  probably  be 
related  in  blood,  as  they  certainly  would  be  on  paper ;  but 
the  blood  relationship  might  be  very  slight  indeed,  for  one 
would  be,  as  it  is  now  expressed,  a  "  brother "  of  some  remote 
black  ancestor,  and  the  other  a  "brother"  of  some  remote 
lemon-and-white  ancestor.  But  this  is  not  wholly  true  ;  because 
in  breeding  together  brothers  and  sisters  both  of  one  colour, 
other  colours  will  very  occasionally  come  in  the  offspring. 
The  influence  of  sire  and  dam  is  shown  to  be  much  less  than 
was  previously  thought  possible,  but  it  is  not  shown  to  be  absent, 
in  spite  of  the  cell  and  germ  theory. 

It  is  obvious  that,  in  starting  to  keep  pointers,  a  prospective 
breeder  must  settle  on  one  or  other  of  the  three  existing  types, 
and  it  is  necessary  for  such  a  beginner  to  know  that  he  may 
cross  them  one  with  the  other  with  great  constitutional  ad- 
vantage, without  much  fear  of  blending  type  or  blood,  pro- 
vided he  selects  for  type  and  character  by  means  of  colour. 
For  instance,  he  may  cross  a  black  pointer  with  a  lemon-and- 
white  or  liver-and-white,  and  repeat  this  in  every  generation, 
and  yet  the  puppies  that  come  black  will  be  of  one  type,  and 
those  that  come  lemon-and-white  will  be  of  the  other.  The  cases 
of  blending  will  be  very  rare  indeed,  and  can  easily  be  discarded. 

The  late  Joseph  Lang,  the  gun-maker,  had  a  breed  of  lemon- 
and-white  pointers,  from  which  those  of  the  late  Mr.  Whitehouse 
were  descended,  and  that  gentleman's  Priam  and  Mr.  W. 
Arkwright's  Shamrock,  with  a  space  of  thirty-five  years  between 
them,  might  have  been  litter  brothers  for  appearance  and  work. 
The  latter  is  the  best  lemon-and-white  pointer  seen  out  in  quite 
recent  years,  and  the  former  was  probably  the  best  of  his  period. 
Sir  VVatkin  Williams  Wynn  has  a  strain  of  lemon-and-white 
pointers  in  which  black-and-white  and  liver-and-white  often 
come,  and  in  this  kennel  there  is  a  nearer  approach  to  a  blend 


132  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

of  type   in  the  three  colours  than  has  been  remarked  by  the 
author  elsewhere. 

Mr.  A.  E.  Butter,  of  Faskally,  had  a  very  fine  kennel  of  liver- 
and-white  pointers,  mostly  derived  from  a  strain  kept  up  in 
Shropshire  and  the  neighbourhood.  These  dogs  had  all  the 
best  strains  of  liver-and-white  blood  in  their  pedigrees,  and  they 
were  as  successful  at  field  trials  as,  and  much  resembled,  Mr. 
Sam  Price's  Bang  and  Mike.  Faskally  Bragg  and  Syke  of 
Bromfield  were  most  striking  workers,  entirely  of  the  liver-and- 
white  type ;  but  good  as  they  were  in  the  field,  it  was  difficult  to 
see  how  Bragg  became  a  show  Champion,  with  a  very  heavy 
shoulder,  great  throat  like  a  hound,  and  the  same  suggestion 
behind.  But  he  became  a  capital  stud  dog,  and  in  Melksham 
Bragg  probably  became  the  sire  of  his  own  superior  in  work 
as  well  as  in  appearance.  But  a  better  than  either  was  Syke 
of  Bromfield.  The  best  of  this  type  is  now  in  the  kennel  of 
Colonel  C.  J.  Cotes  of  Pitchford,  whose  Pitchford  Ranger  and 
Pitchford  Duke  are  in  every  way  admirable  specimens  of  this 
type  of  pointer.  The  latter's  dam,  Pitchford  Druce,  approaches 
the  dish-faced,  fine-sterned  type,  and  very  few  better  have  won  at 
field  trials  in  recent  years.  Colonel  Cotes  tells  the  author  that 
this  bitch  traces  back  to  his  father's  old  breed,  kept  for  a  century 
at  Woodcote,  where  there  were  constant  interchanges  of  blood 
with  Sir  Thomas  Boughey's  sort,  only  recently  dispersed.  Mr. 
Elias  Bishop  has  been  very  successful  with  his  family  of  pointers 
called  the  Pedros,  and  these  again  are  of  the  liver-and-white 
type,  but  with  a  tendency  to  the  dish-faces  of  the  lemon-and- 
white  dogs,  and  not  as  coarse  in  the  sterns  as  some  of  the 
more  pronounced  liver-and-white  type. 

Mr.  Arkwright  has  the  best  black  pointers  the  author  has 
seen.  Their  bodies  are  distinctly  greyhoundy  in  form,  but  not 
their  heads.  The  last-mentioned  fact  does  not  preclude  the 
possibility  of  a  remote  cross  of  greyhound,  as  colour  is  a  truer 
indication  of  blood,  although  not  of  paper  pedigree,  than  is  head 
formation.  By  "  paper  pedigree "  no  suggestion  of  false  testi- 
mony is  intended,  but  reference  is  made  to  the  recently  ascer- 
tained facts  that  two  of  a  litter  may  be  widely  different  in  root 


CO  I. 


C.    J.    COTKS     C'HAMI'IOX    I  IKI.D   •IKIAl,    I'll  (  II  FORI  i    KANOKK 
0\    l.Okli    IIOMKS    I.WARK    MOOR- 


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(  HA.Ml'lON     I  ll'.ll)     Ikl  Al. 
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Riic  111  oRii  raN(;i:r  o.n 


THE  POINTER  133 

origin.  Some  of  the  self-coloured  pointers  of  Mr.  Arkwright's 
kennel  have  been  fawn  colour,  a  well-known  greyhound  shade. 
It  may  be  that  these  are  throwbacks  to  the  greyhound  blood. 
But  that  would  not  be  the  author's  explanation.  As  observed 
above,  a  blend  of  colour  very  seldom  comes  by  crossing  one 
colour  with  another,  when  both  are  pure  bred  and  neither  have 
the  blend  of  colour  in  their  ancestry.  But  a  little  more  often  than 
a  blend  of  colour  comes  a  heritage  of  the  colour  of  one  parent 
and  the  markings  of  the  other.  So  that  when  Mr.  Arkwright 
has  crossed  a  lemon-and-white  with  a  black,  there  would  be 
nothing  wonderful  for  an  occasional  puppy  to  come  with  the 
markings  of  the  black  parent,  but  of  the  colour  of  lemon, 
in  this  case  called  fawn,  which  is  the  same  colour.  On  the 
other  hand,  a  blend  of  colour  and  markings  would  require 
the  offspring  to  be  whole-coloured  and  liver-coloured.  That 
liver  colour  is  occasionally  obtained  from  blending  the  red  or 
sandy  with  the  black,  the  author  has  proved  beyond  question 
in  his  own  experience  where  neither  parent  inherited  the  colour, 
but  it  seems  to  require  a  violent  out-cross  to  give  rise  to  it,  for 
black-and-white  and  lemon-and-white  dogs  of  the  same  family 
may  sometimes  be  bred  together  for  many  generations  without 
giving  rise  to  this  blend  of  colour. 

Mr.  Pilkington  at  one  time  had  as  good  liver-and-white 
pointers  as  anyone  who  was  then  running  dogs  in  public.  His 
Garnet  was  very  much  of  a  pointer ;  and  Nicholson,  who 
engineered  him  to  victory,  has  continued  to  win  at  field  trials 
with  some  of  the  breed ;  and  another  Salopian  keeper  who  has 
been  a  most  successful  breeder  is  Mawson,  who  bred  Faskally 
Bragg  and  Syke  of  Bromfield. 

As  the  sire  of  Mr.  A.  T.  Williams'  Rose  of  Gerwn,  the  stud 
dog  Lurgan  Loyalty  cannot  be  passed  over.  Rose  was  full  of 
vitality  and  pointer  instinct,  but  far  from  handsome,  and  very 
small.  Lurgan  himself  was  a  small  dog  and  very  well  made, 
but  he  had  rather  a  terrier  -  like  head.  His  daughter, 
Coronation,  although  long  held  to  be  the  best  pointer  on  the 
show  bench,  was  obviously  too  shelly  for  hard  work,  and 
can   only   be   mentioned    here  to  show  that   exhibition  points 


134  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

need  have  no  relationship  to  the  essentials  for  a  working 
dog. 

In  these  days  of  wild  grouse  and  partridges,  all  the  fine 
qualities  and  beauties  of  a  pointer  are  absolutely  useless  unless 
the  individual  is  endowed  with  the  very  best  of  olfactory 
powers. 

The  length  of  a  pointer's  "  nose "  is  determined  by  the 
day  ;  but  the  author  is  inclined  to  believe  that  the  relative 
distances  at  which  any  two  dogs  can  find  game  always  bear 
the  same  proportions  to  each  other.  One  on  a  fair  scenting 
day  may  find  game  at  lOO  yards  and  another  at  lo  yards  ; 
another  day,  or  in  other  circumstances,  the  same  two  noses 
will  be  effective  at  50  yards  and  5  yards  respectively.  Even 
this  great  difference  does  not  convey  all  there  is  between  the 
best  and  the  worst.  Such  differences  have  been  observed  even 
at  field  trials,  where  each  sportsman  only  enters  his  very  best. 
But  behind  those  is  the  rest  of  the  kennel,  and  every  breeder  of 
dogs  must  occasionally  breed  the  very  bad  indeed.  The  author 
has,  at  any  rate,  sometimes  seen  a  dog  with  a  total  inability  to 
find  game  although  both  its  parents  had  exceptional  olfactory 
powers.  What  the  explanation  may  be  cannot  be  suggested, 
but  there  may  be  a  kinship  between  the  organs  of  sight,  hearing, 
and  smell,  and  as  there  are  some  colours  and  sounds  the  human 
eye  and  ear  cannot  detect,  and  some  scents  that  the  human 
nose  cannot  recognise  and  the  dog's  nose  can,  it  seems  possible 
that  even  a  dog's  nose  may  occasionally  be  found  either  below 
or  above  the  range  of  sensitiveness  usual  in  the  canine.  But 
"  nose"  is  the  only  quality  in  the  dog  that  does  not  seem  to  be 
within  the  control  of  the  skilled  breeder,  who  may  expect 
success  within  limits  from  proper  selections  of  parental  form, 
pace,  stamina,  and  heart,  but  in  inheritance  of  olfactory  powers 
must  expect  the  unexpected  occasionally,  but  not  often. 

Having  obtained  pure  bred  pointers,  it  is  well  to  remember 
that  nose  is  even  more  important  than  enormous  speed. 
A  dog  travelling  50  while  another  went  100  yards  would  be 
a  crawler ;  but,  as  has  been  said  above,  nose  differs  by  much 
more.     When,  therefore,  we  consider  the  comparative  merits  ot 


M  t3W 


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FIKI.I)    TRIAL    WIXXl-.R    I'lTLH  K(  )RI)    i'.AX(; 


CAI'TAIX    STIRI.1X(;S    I'.RAi;    dl     K  K I R    (lli:i.|i    TKIAI.    \\IXX!:R) 


COI..  C.  J    COIKS'   VI 


DWIXMOR   FITCHlOkl)   Dl-RK  OX    IHl 


IUAI;()\   Hll.l, 


t.    J.    C(tll-.>     IIKl.Ii    WlNXl-. 
.MOOk: 


I'll  (  lllORli 
IV     |..\XAkK 


IU'RI-.    OX    Idkli    llOMK 


THE  POINTER  135 

two  dogs,  we  should  not  regard  space  in  lineal  measure  but  in 
square  measure.  Thus,  if  we  take  the  slow  speed  at  50  yards 
and  the  long  nose  at  100  yards  and  multiply  them  together,  we 
get  5000  square  yards  as  the  capacity  of  the  slow  dog  for 
hunting  ground,  while  that  of  the  fast  dog  may  be  100  yards 
of  speed  multiplied  by  10  yards  of  nose,  or  only  1000  square 
yards  of  covering  capacity  as  against  5000  of  the  slow  dog. 

This  is  not  intended  to  be  an  excuse  for  slow  dogs,  for  it 
usually  happens  that  the  very  fast  ones  are  also  the  best  for 
nose ;  but  it  is  meant  to  imply  that  a  dog  should  not  be  exert- 
ing his  whole  energy  in  galloping,  because  if  he  is  he  will  not 
be  thinking  about  game-finding,  and  will  not  find.  A  pointer 
must  do  the  thing  easily,  and  go  well  within  his  powers.  He 
must  not  couple  and  uncouple  like  a  greyhound.  He  must  not 
gallop  like  a  little  race-horse,  although  he  may,  if  he  can,  gallop 
like  one  of  those  smashers  that  are  said  to  "  win  in  a  canter," 
which  means  that  they  are  not  exerting  themselves.  Pointers 
with  lively  stern  action  may  be  taken  always  to  be  hunting  well 
within  their  powers.  Some  of  those  that  have  no  stern  action 
would  have  it  if  they  were  not  over-exerting  themselves  in  gallop- 
ing, but  this  is  not  invariable  ;  and  some  of  the  fastest  and  best 
pointers  have  not  had  stern  action.    For  instance,  Drake  had  not. 

About  1872,  Mr.  Thomas  Statter,  of  Stand  Hall,  near 
Manchester,  had  as  good  pointers  as  anyone  and  the  best 
setters.  His  pointers  were  of  Lord  Derby's  liver-and-white 
strain,  and  Major,  Manton,  Rex,  and  Viscount  were  some  of  his 
best.  Major  appears  at  no  time  to  have  been  under  much 
control,  but  he  was  a  dog  of  great  natural  capacity,  and  his 
blood  told  in  future  canine  generations,  whereas  that  of  his 
better  trained  victors  died  out.  The  late  Mr.  A.  P.  Pleywood 
Lonsdale  had  a  fine  strain  of  this  kind  of  pointer  blood,  and  at 
the  moment  of  writing  one  of  the  best,  if  not  the  actual  best 
pointer  in  America  is  descended  from  dogs  exported  direct 
from  the  Ightfield  kennel,  which  is  now  particularly  strong  in 
setters,  but  has  not  many  pointers.  For  the  late  Mr.  Lonsdale, 
and  afterwards  for  his  son,  Captain  H.  Hey  wood  Lonsdale,  the 
late  W.  Brailsford  managed  a  fine  kennel  of  dogs,  as  he  had 


136  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

previously  for  the  late  .Duke  of  Westminster,  and  before  that  for 
Lord  Lichfield.  His  pointers,  wherever  he  went,  were  of  the  liver- 
and-white  sort,  and  were  practically  of  the  same  strains  as  those 
mentioned  in  Drake's  pedigree.  Indeed,  it  is  probable  that 
Brailsford  and  some  other  keepers  did  as  much  as  the  dogs' 
owners  to  keep  up  this  race  of  pointers,  which  is  now  stronger 
in  Salop  than  anywhere.  William  Brailsford,  moreover,  founded 
the  National  Field  Trials  during  the  time  he  was  managing 
Lord  Lichfield's  kennel,  in  1866 — that  is,  one  year  after  the 
first  start  of  field  trials  in  Bedfordshire. 

To  start  breeding  pointers  of  the  right  sort  is  as  easy  as  to 
continue  breeding  the  wrong.  There  are  dogs  constantly  going 
to  auction  whose  ancestors  have  won  field  trials  for  ten  to 
thirteen  generations.  This  is  a  guarantee  to  a  certain  extent 
that  puppies  will  be  worth  something  to  shoot  over.  It  is 
a  great  assistance  to  the  breeder,  who,  having  the  blood,  can 
confine  his  powers  of  selection  to  the  choice  for  external  form, 
which  is  a  great  simplification,  A  pedigree  as  long  as  one's  arm 
is  absolutely  useless  as  a  mere  record  of  names,  but  with  field 
trial  victors  in  every  generation  it  is  nearly  all  the  help  that  a 
breeder  can  desire.  If  to  these  were  added  good  photographs 
of  each  generation,  it  would  make  breeding  almost  a  certainty. 

The  records  of  bench  show  wins  by  no  means  take  the 
place  of  photographs,  for  the  variation  of  victorious  types  is  as 
great  as  that  of  the  selection  of  judges.  This  was  always  so, 
but  of  late  years  dogs  have  been  bred  for  show  without  regard 
to  their  business  in  life;  so  that  many  exhibition  pointers  are 
only  nominally  of  that  breed,  and  instead  of  shows  assisting 
pointer  breeders  they  are  so  managed  as  to  preclude  competition 
by  field  trial  dogs.  This  might  be  altered  by  the  adoption  by 
the  Stud  Book,  or  a  new  one,  of  the  principles  upon  which  the 
Foxhound  Stud  Book  is  managed  by  the  Masters  of  Fox- 
hounds Association.  That  is,  by  only  admitting  hounds  bred 
from  sire  and  dam  entered  in  a  recognised  pack.  The  same 
principle  would  be  satisfactorily  adopted  if  only  dogs  bred 
from  field  trial  winning  parents,  or  winners  themselves,  were 
admitted  to  the  Stud  Book,  or  to  pointer  classes  at  shows,  when 


THE  POINTER  137 

both  the  book  and  the  exhibition  would  become  of  real  use. 
A  similar  principle  is  involved  at  the  King's  Premium  Show  of 
thorough-bred  horses,  where  the  performances  on  the  Turf  of 
the  competitors  are  placed  before  the  judges;  and  in  1906  the 
latter  have  recommended  that  they  should  be  allowed  to  con- 
sider pedigrees  also  in  making  their  awards. 

Formation,  which  indicates  power  to  work,  is  of  as  much 
importance  in  a  well-bred  dog  as  pedigree,  which  should  in- 
dicate will  to  work.  But  in  a  badly  bred  dog  formation  is  of 
no  importance,  but,  by  the  Kennel  Club  management  of  dog 
shows  and  Stud  Book,  formation  is  treated  as  of  the  first  im- 
portance, and  true  working  blood  as  of  no  importance  whatever. 
The  author  ventures  to  predict  an  alteration,  or,  failing  that,  a 
time  when  all  the  owners  of  sporting  dogs  of  all  kinds  will 
ignore  the  Kennel  Club  as  completely  as  the  Masters  of  Hounds 
Association  and  the  Governing  Body  of  Coursing  always  have. 

Mr.  B,  J.  Warwick,  who  has  Compton  Pride,  a  liver-and- 
white  pointer  with  the  distinction  of  winning  the  Champion 
Field  Trial  Stake  at  Shrewsbury  twice,  is  a  member  of  the 
Kennel  Club,  and  Mr.  Sidney  Turner,  its  Chairman,  has  pro- 
posed at  meeting  only  to  give  championship  Kennel  Club 
certificates  to  field  trial  winners ;  but  the  sporting  influence 
is  weak  in  the  Club,  and  nothing  has  come  of  the  Chairman's 
proposition,  which  by  itself  would  not  go  half  far  enough  to 
redeem  the  sporting  character  of  the  Kennel  Club,  or  to  put 
under  ground  all  show  dogs  that  are  nominally  sporting  but 
cannot  work.  Nothing  less  drastic  will  be  of  the  smallest  use 
in  improving  the  shows  for  the  true  working  breeds.  The 
author  is  speaking  only  of  pointers  and  setters  here,  of  which 
breeds  large  numbers  could  qualify.  The  same  treatment  for 
spaniels  and  retrievers  would  naturally  be  deferred  until  field 
trials  for  those  breeds  had  produced  more  winners  and  more 
dogs  bred  from  winners  in  the  field. 

The  following  contrast  will  assist  in  showing  the  care 
necessary  in  the  choice  of  blood ;  for  no  breed  differs  more 
between  its  individuals  than  the  pointers. 

About  1865  the  writer  had  a  small  black-and-white  dog  of 


138  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

the  race,  which  was  nearly  the  first  dog  he  broke.  But  he  was 
almost  ashamed  to  say  that  he  did  break  it ;  for,  with  the 
exception  of  holding  up  a  hand  occasionally,  there  was  nothing 
to  be  done,  and  yet  this  dog  had  all  the  desire  to  quest  for 
game  that  could  be  wished.  It  taught  itself  to  point,  to  range, 
to  back,  and  almost  to  drop  to  wing,  and  never  desired  to 
chase  a  hare.  Shortly  before  this,  being  then  very  young,  the 
author  became  impressed  with  the  necessity  of  possessing  more 
pointers,  and  by  means  of  advertisement  procured  a  bitch  to 
breed  from.  She  had  a  pedigree  of  enormous  proportions  and 
pretence,  but  a  list  of  names  has  no  meaning  unless  attached 
to  those  names  are  records  of  the  performances  of  the  animals 
that  once  possessed  them.  However,  not  everybody  was  aware 
of  that  at  a  period,  unlike  the  present,  when  a  pointer  generally 
meant  a  dog  kept  to  shoot  over,  and  the  purchase  looked  like 
a  pointer — at  any  rate,  it  was  liver-and-white.  She  bred  four 
puppies,  which  were  very  foolishly  exhibited  at  the  Birmingham 
Show.  More  foolish  still  it  was  to  give  them  a  run  behind  a 
horse.  They  looked  like  following,  and  if  they  would  not,  the 
author  believed  he  could  follow  them.  They  soon  put  him  to 
the  test,  for  they  went  straight  away  in  a  pack  after  nothing 
whatever,  until  they  came  to  a  field  in  which  sheep  were  penned 
on  turnips.  Then  they  all  together  went  for  the  sheep,  and  for 
the  first  time  divided.  It  is  all  very  well  to  be  huntsman, 
but  difficult  to  double  the  parts  and  be  whipper-in  as  well, 
especially  when  the  pack  divides.  Besides,  one  hunting  thong 
does  not  go  far  in  tying  up  four  dogs  to  hurdles  ;  more  especially 
when  they  bite  the  thong  in  two  while  another  is  being  ridden 
down.  There  was  much  cry  and  not  a  little  wool  ;  but 
although  they  went  for  the  throats,  they  were  attacking  Lincoln 
or  Leicester  sheep,  and  the  long  wool  helped  to  save  some  of 
the  mutton.  These  dogs  had  no  natural  quest,  although  they 
were  wild  for  a  race  and  for  blood.  Had  they  had  collars  on 
when  they  went  for  the  sheep,  each  could  have  been  rendered 
harmless  upon  being  caught  by  having  one  fore  foot  slipped 
through  the  collar,  but  the  author  did  not  learn  the  trick  until 
many  years  later. 


ENGLISH  SETTERS 

FOR  reasons  that  it  is  difficult  to  fully  explain,  English 
setters  have  been  subjected  to  more  fluctuations  in  merit 
than  any  other  breed.  The  last  decadence  undoubtedly  set  in 
when  the  show  and  field  trial  sorts  first  became  distinct 
breeds.  The  show  dogs  lost  the  assurance  of  constitution 
which  work  in  the  field  guarantees,  and  the  field  trial  dogs 
lost  the  breeder's  care  for  external  form,  which  as  show  dogs 
their  ancestors  had  received.  Moreover,  they  had  no  equivalent 
in  England  in  the  form  of  stamina  tests  at  field  trials,  and 
the  principal  breeders  have  so  many  dogs  that  stamina  is  of 
little  importance  in  practice  to  them,  however  necessary  it  is  to 
the  maintenance  of  the  vitality  of  a  race  of  thorough-breds. 

There  is  evidence  of  black-white-and-tan  setters  in  a 
Flemish  picture  of  A.  Durer,  but  in  England  the  earliest  clear 
evidence  makes  the  English  setter  of  1726,  or  thereabouts,  either 
red-and-white  or  black-and-tan.  From  the  breeding  together 
of  these  two  colours  may  now  be  produced  whole-coloured  red 
and  whole-coloured  black,  black-and-white,  and  black-white-and- 
tan  dogs,  and  possibly  also  their  various  mixtures,  such  as 
"  ticked  "  dogs  of  either  colour,  but  this  is  doubtful.  There  have 
been  several  strains  of  liver-and-white  setters,  quite  pure  bred 
as  far  as  anyone  knew,  but  bearing  traces  of  water  spaniel 
character,  so  that  it  is  probable  they  were  originated  by  this 
cross  at  some  remote  period.  Probably  it  is  possible  to  originate 
liver-and-white  by  crossing  black-and-white  on  lemon-and- 
white ;  but  if  that  is  so,  this  is  an  original  mixture  of  colouring 
that  is  exceedingly  unusual,  provided  there  is  no  reversion  to 
a    liver-and-white   ancestor.     It    is    unusual    for  this    blend    to 

139 


140  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

occur,  because  a  race  of  setters  has  been  bred  for  many  years 
in  which  more  than  99  per  cent,  of  the  offspring  came  one  of 
three  colours — namely,  black-and-white  ticked,  lemon-and-white 
ticked,  and  black -white-and-tan  with  very  few  ticks  and  large 
patches  of  colour.  The  other  two  colours  that  have  shown 
themselves,  each  less  than  i  per  cent,,  have  been  red  and 
white  in  large  patches — a  combination  of  the  markings  of  one, 
and  the  colour  of  another,  ancestral  race — and  liver-and-white. 
But  it  is  possible  that  these  two  rare  kinds  are  not  blends  at 
all,  but  only  reversions  to  ancestors  more  than  thirty  -  five 
years  and  ten  or  twelve  generations  back.  Paper  pedigrees 
can  trace  the  colours  and  the  absence  of  red  markings  back 
much  farther  than  this,  but  the  author  is  only  now  discussing 
what  he  personally  remembers.  Probably  these  are  not  rever- 
sions at  all,  but  merely  blends  of  colour  and  markings.  It  would 
possibly  be  more  nearly  correct  to  say  that  the  liver-and-white 
appears  in  the  race  referred  to  no  more  often  than  once  in  a 
thousand  puppies.  If  it  is  a  reversion,  it  shows  how  very 
nearly  a  cross  may  be  bred  out ;  and  if  it  is  a  blend,  it  proves 
that  whatever  generation  of  these  black-and-white  and  lemon- 
and-white  setters  are  crossed  together  the  offspring  continues 
to  come  of  the  three  original  strains  of  blood,  with  little  mixture, 
and  very  seldom  a  thorough  mixture. 

All  the  best  English  setters  in  the  world  are  descended 
from  Mr.  Hackett's  Rake,  a  descendant  of  Mr.  Burdett's  black- 
and-tan  Brougham.  Rake  begat  Mr.  Statter's  Rhoebe,  and 
also  Judy,  the  dam  of  the  Champion  Field  Trial  dog  Ranger. 
These  two,  Rhoebe  and  Ranger,  founded  two  distinct  families, 
which  for  a  very  long  time  were  not  mixed,  and  in  America  are 
still  separate,  and  the  former  remains  uncrossed  with  American 
blood.  The  Ranger  blood  was  principally  kept  up  by  Mr. 
James  Bishop  of  Wellington,  Salop,  and  by  Mr.  Elias  Bishop 
also. 

The  Rhoebe  blood  came  into  note  when  this  celebrated 
brood  bitch  was  crossed  with  Duke,  a  dog  bred  from  a  Netherby 
dog,  and  a  Staffordshire  bred  bitch,  belonging  to  the  late  Sir 
Vincent  Corbet.     Amongst  many  good  offspring,  Rhcebe  had 


ENGLISH  SETTERS  141 

one  peculiar  dog  called  Dan.  He  stood  over  27  inches  at  the 
shoulder,  and  had  more  bone  than  any  foxhound.  This  setter 
won  the  Champion  Stake  at  the  National  Field  Trials  in  1871. 
His  chief  merits  were  that  he  was  very  fast  without  distressing 
himself,  and  his  tremendous  strength  and  stride  enabled  him 
to  go  round  fast  small  ones  without  appearing  to  be  trying, 
and  meantime  to  flick  his  stern  as  only  those  going  within  their 
powers  can.  Setter  breeding  was  revolutionised  when  this  dog 
was  bred  to  the  best  bitches  of  Mr.  Laverack's  sort. 

Mr.  Laverack's  dogs  in  the  sixties  were  known  mostly  upon 
the  show  bench ;  but  what  was  then  less  well  recognised  was 
that  no  dogs  had  done  harder  work  upon  the  moors  for  many 
canine  generations.  They  were  said  to  be  in-bred  to  only  two 
animals  on  all  sides  of  this  pedigree,  and  to  go  back  seventy 
years  without  any  cross  whatever.  It  is  probable  that  Mr. 
Laverack  had  forgotten  what  crosses  he  did  make  ;  but  in  any 
case  he  crossed  with  the  black-white-and-tan  Gordons  of  Lord 
Lovat's  kennel,  and  whether  he  kept  the  offspring  or  not,  there 
was  generally  a  trace  of  tan  about  the  cheeks  of  his  black-and- 
white  ticked  dogs.  In  any  case,  his  dogs  were  very  much  in- 
bred, until  some  of  them  suddenly  came  liver- and-white  in  one 
litter,  and  red,  and  black,  whole-coloured  in  another.  None  of 
the  latter  were  allowed  to  mix  with  the  Rhcebe  and  Duke 
strain  of  setters,  and  indeed  these  were  only  crossed  with  the 
blood  named  above,  and  with  that  of  John  Armstrong's  Dash  II., 
a  son  of  a  Laverack  setter  dog,  and  descended  from  a  bitch 
said  to  be  a  sister  of  that  Duke  mentioned  above.  From  this 
limited  material  in  point  of  numbers,  but  of  three  distinct 
strains  of  blood,  the  finest  setters  of  modern  times  were  pro- 
duced, including  many  that  won  principal  honours  of  the  show 
and  also  of  the  field  trials.  In  England  they  took  most  of 
the  field  trials  for  setters  for  some  years,  and  in  America  they 
took  all  stakes  that  were  open  to  both  pointers  and  setters  for 
even  longer.  To  apportion  tlie  merit  amongst  the  original 
three  strains  would  be  difficult,  but  as  the  setter  breeding  of  the 
future  depends  on  a  proper  understanding  of  that  of  the  past, 
some  few  remarks  may  be  of  use.     First,  it  has  to  be  admitted 


142  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

that  the  Rhoebe  blood  was  as  successful  when  crossed  with  the 
Laverack  race  as  when  braced  up  by  the  cross  with  Duke. 
Also  that  Duke's  descendants  from  other  crosses  than  that  of 
Rhcebe  were  better  than  any  others,  except  her  own  so  crossed 
descendants.  Duke  and  the  Laveracks  never  were  directly 
crossed  together,  and  there  is  nothing  to  be  had  from  the 
pedigree  of  Kate,  the  grand-dam  of  Armstrong's  Dash  II., 
because  it  has  been  variously  given  at  different  times.  On  the 
book,  then,  the  merit  was  due  to  Rhoebe  and  Duke  in  equal 
proportions,  but  the  book  is  wrong.  The  reason  for  this  being 
said  is  that  the  brothers  and  sisters  of  Dan,  by  Duke  from 
Rhoebe,  were  a  poor  lot.  They  were  great  big  26  inch  dogs 
and  24  inch  bitches,  and  one  of  them,  namely  Dick,  in 
appearance  with  Dan  made  the  most  remarkable  brace  that 
ever  won  the  stake  at  the  National  Trials,  and  apparently  there 
was  not  a  pin  to  choose  between  them,  except  that  Dan  was 
the  faster.  They  hunted  out  what  is  now  the  Waterworks  field 
at  Acton  Reynold  in  a  style  of  ranging,  pointing,  and  backing 
that  could  not  be  improved  on  even  in  imagination,  and  the 
way  they  had  of  going  down  on  their  elbows,  and  standing  up 
behind,  with  their  great  flags  on  a  line  with  their  backs,  and 
consequently  pointing  upwards  at  an  angle  of  45  degrees,  was 
a  revelation  in  style,  just  as  the  pace  was,  for  it  was  so  easily 
done  that  they  had  lots  of  time  to  flick  their  sterns  as  they 
went.  When  they  were  taken  up  without  a  mistake,  no  others, 
even  without  a  mistake  too,  could  have  been  in  the  running. 
But  Dick  was  a  flat-catcher,  wanting  in  stamina,  courage,  and 
in  nose,  for  he  was  a  bad  false  pointer.  Dan  was  the  only  one 
of  the  litter,  as  far  as  they  were  known  to  the  author,  that  was 
a  perfectly  honest  dog,  and  exhibited  no  more  at  a  field  trial 
than  in  private.  It  is  therefore  not  possible  to  discredit  the 
Laverack  bitches  that,  when  crossed  with  Dan,  again  and  again 
produced  litters  in  which  there  was  scarcely  any  difference 
between  the  best  and  the  worst,  and  in  which,  when  the  best 
died,  the  worst  were  good  enough  to  find  themselves  running 
against  Ranger  for  the  National  Championship.  But  this  is 
not  all  the   evidence   in   favour  of  the    Laveracks,   for,  when 


ENGLISH  SETTERS  143 

heavy  dogs  of  that  strain  were  crossed  with  the  very  moderate 
sisters  of  Dan,  the  produce  was  far  better  than  either  the  sires 
or  dams.  It  was  only  when  the  three  sorts  were  blended  that 
anything  like  uniformity,  or  a  distinct  breed,  appeared,  and  the 
offspring  were  far  more  true  to  type,  and  merit  in  work,  when 
the  tail-male  line  was  to  Duke  and  the  tail-female  a  Laverack, 
than  when  the  order  was  reversed.  The  Stud  Book  shows  the 
field  trial  winnings  of  the  sort,  and  it  will  always  be  re- 
membered that  once,  when  the  Field  Trial  Derby  was  a  very 
big  stake,  four  setter  puppies  of  this  breed,  belonging  to  Mr. 
Llewellin,  took  the  four  first  places  in  it  that  could  fall  to 
setters.  In  other  words,  they  put  out  all  the  other  setters  and 
then  defeated  the  best  pointer.  At  other  times  they  won  the 
brace  stake  one  day,  and  one  of  the  brace  the  single  stake  the 
next.  Then  Count  Wind'em  and  Novel  on  one  occasion  took 
the  two  championships  at  Birmingham  Show  for  good  looks, 
and  beat  the  best  pointers  and  setters  at  the  National  Trials  as 
well.  Count  Wind'em  was  about  25  inches  at  the  shoulder, 
long  and  low,  and  neither  hot  "  muggy "  weather  in  August, 
nor  hillsides  of  the  steepest  on  which  grouse  lie,  could  tire  him. 
One  field  trial  judge  of  the  day  who  saw  the  way  he  did  the 
heather  against  such  dogs  as  Dash  II.,  and  other  winners  of 
the  time,  compared  the  sight  to  that  of  a  great  racing  cutter 
sailing  round  a  2orater.  It  was  all  done  without  an  effort, 
and  therein  lay  the  conserved  energy  that  kept  on  as  long  as 
any  man  could  follow. 

In  America  this  breed  was  first  called  the  "  Field  Trial  breed," 
then  "  Llewellin  setters,"  and  also  "  The  straight-bred  sort,"  by 
which  it  is  generally  known  in  conversation.  At  the  time  of 
writing  (June  1906)  the  last  pure  bred  one  of  the  race  that  has 
run  at  an  English  field  trial  was  Mr.  Llevvellin's  Dan  Wind'em, 
bred  in  the  last  century.  But  in  America  nothing  has  ever  been 
able  to  suppress  the  pure  bred  ones  at  the  field  trials  there. 
When  they  have  not  won,  their  90  per  cent,  of  pure  blood 
descendants  have  done  so.  In  1904  the  author  was  on  a  visit 
to  America,  and,  having  been  requested  to  help  judge  their 
Champion  Stake,  did  so,  with  the  result  that  one  of  these  pure 


144  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

breds  defeated  all  comers.  This  dog  was  called  "  Mohawk," 
and  in  the  same  kennel  was  another  setter  named  "  Tony  Man." 
The  latter  had  a  slight  trace  of  outside  blood,  but  the 
two  were  almost  identical  to  look  at.  Tony  Man  had  just 
previously  beaten  Mohawk,  and  won  the  stake  of  the  United 
States  Field  Trial  Club  in  first-rate  style.  But  the  trace  of 
outside  blood  was  so  very  much  regarded  by  the  American 
sportsmen  that  the  author  heard  Tony  Man  offered  for  sale  at 
;£'200,  whereas  he  was  assured  on  independent  evidence  again 
and  again  that  Mohawk  could  easily  earn  ;i^5oo  a  year  at  the 
stud.  This  great  difference  is  caused  not  at  all  by  any  great 
difference  in  the  prospective  merits  of  the  descendants  of  the 
two  dogs,  but  merely  by  the  fact  that  those  of  one  can  be 
registered  as  "straight-bred,"  and  those  of  the  other  cannot. 
The  book  of  reference  is  The  A  merican  Fields  Stud  Book,  where 
those  with  any  cross  whatever  are  registered  as  English  setters, 
and  the  others  as  "  Llewellin  setters."  These  straight-bred  ones 
trace  on  all  sides  to  seven  dogs  bred  in  the  sixties  of  last 
century — namely,  Mr.  Laverack's  Dash  II.,  his  Fred,  and  his 
Moll  III.,  Mr.  Blinkhorn's  Lill  I.,  Mr.  Thomas  Statter's  Rhoebe, 
Sir  F.  Graham's  Duke,  and  Sir  Vincent  Corbet's  Slut. 

That  a  breed  should  have  lasted  without  cross  for  so  long, 
and  now  be  as  full  of  vitality  as  ever  it  was,  can  only  be 
accounted  for  by  the  intensely  searching  selection  of  the  fittest 
for  work,  in  a  manner  that  tries  constitution  as  well.  In 
America  they  have  from  thirty-five  to  forty  field  trials  each  year ; 
the  best  and  severest  is  the  Champion  Stake,  and  wisely  the 
winners  of  this  event  are  bred  from  to  the  exclusion  of  most 
others.  To  have  won  the  stake  is  to  have  proved  ability  to 
hunt  at  an  extreme  tension  for  three  hours  without  slackening 
up.  That  is  to  finish  much  faster  than  the  average  of  fast  dogs 
start  when  fresh  in  the  morning.  The  only  falling  off  that  the 
author  could  discover,  compared  with  the  great  dogs  in  England 
of  the  seventies  and  eighties,  was  the  want  of  size  of  the  best 
dogs  there.  Mohawk  measured  by  the  author  under  21  inches 
at  the  shoulder.  There  are  many  large  dogs  of  the  blood  out 
there,  but  they  are  not  those  of  the  most  vitality,  although  they 


MR.    HKkr.i-.kr 


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■JHK   >1'R1\(.;    OF    l;iori 


ENGLISH  SETTERS  i45 

fairly  compare  in  that  respect  with  the  best  dogs  in  England, 
Besides  the  selection  already  referred  to,  what  helps  to  keep  up 
this  in-bred  race  as  workers,  whereas  it  died  out  in  England,  is 
the  number  that  are  bred  in  the  States  and  Canada.  There 
are  many  thousands  there  ;  probably  in  England  there  are  not 
more  than  two  or  three  besides  importations  from  America  and 
their  descendants.  It  should  be  stated,  to  make  this  clear,  that 
the  setters  run  of  late  by  Mr.  Llewellin  at  field  trials  have 
been  cross-breds,  and  would  not  be  registered  in  The  American 
Field  Stud  Book  as  "  Llewellin  setters."  The  following  are 
referred  to  as  cross-breds:  Border  Brenda,  Count  Gleam, 
Kitty  Wind'em,  Border  Beauty,  Orange  Bloom,  Pixie  of  the 
Fells,  Countess  Brenda,  Countess  Carrie,  Miss  Mabel,  Countess 
Nellie,  Puck  of  the  Fells,  and  Countess  Shield.  That  is  to  say, 
all  the  dogs  run  by  Mr.  Llewellin  at  field  trials  in  the  years 
1903,  1904,  and  1905. 

Others  who  have  the  blood  in  this  crossed  form  are  Colonel 
C.  J.  Cotes  of  Pitchford  and  Captain  H.  Heywood  Lonsdale 
of  Shavington,  near  Market  Drayton,  The  latter  has  some 
American-bred  straight-breds,  but  reference  is  here  made  to  their 
old  and  well-known  field  trial  strains.  Each  of  these  kennels 
obtained  a  large  draft  of  the  pure  bred  sort  in  the  early  eighties, 
or  late  seventies,  and  introduced  it  widely  into  their  own  breeds. 
These  were  formerly  founded  on  Lord  Waterpark's  breed,  and 
his  were  crossed  very  much  with  Armstrong's  Duke  already 
referred  to,  so  that  the  crossing  of  the  two  strains  had  the 
double  benefit  of  out-crossing  generally,  and  yet  in-breeding  to 
one  particular  dog,  and  that  one  as  valuable  in  a  pedigree  as 
Duke.  Some  years  ago,  for  an  article  in  Country  Life,  the 
author  tabulated  the  pedigree  of  Captain  Lonsdale's  Ightfield 
Gaby,  and  found  that  he  had  eight  distinct  crosses  of  Duke,  and 
as  he  was  then  by  far  the  best  setter  in  England,  it  was  only 
history  repeating  itself  in  the  matter  of  the  most  successful 
blood. 

Thus  the  American  straight -bred,  as  has  been  shown,  was 
obtained  by  crossing  three  unrelated  breeds  of  setters  together. 
Unrelated  setters  cannot  now  be  found  without  going  to  the 


146  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

black-and-tans  and  the  Irish.  But  such  crosses  are  not  required 
as  long  as  America  has  a  strain  of  straight-bred  ones  uncrossed 
with  anything  on  this  side  the  water  for  a  quarter  of  a  century. 
Indeed,  the  value  of  the  American  cross  has  already  been 
proved  by  Mr.  Alexander  Hall's  Guiniard  Shot  and  Dash. 
They  are  bred  from  a  bitch  imported  from  America,  but  not 
a  "straight-bred"  one.  These  two  and  Captain  Lonsdale's 
Ightfield  Duffer  were  the  best  setters  seen  in  1905,  and  in  their 
absence  another  Ightfield  bred  one  on  one  side  of  her  pedigree, 
namely,  Mr.  Herbert  Mitchell's  Lingfield  Beryl,  has  carried  all 
the  spring  field  trials  of  the  1906  season  by  storm,  and  has 
beaten  the  pointers  equally  with  the  setters  in  single  and 
in  brace  stakes  too.  She  is  a  long  way  the  best  setter  Mr. 
Herbert  Mitchell  has  ever  had.  Like  Ightfield  Gaby,  already 
mentioned  as  the  best  of  his  period,  the  only  fault  with  her 
is  that,  with  the  same  beauty  of  form  and  strength  to  carry 
her  light  setter-like  body,  she  would  have  been  better  if  larger. 

Of  course  this  is  intended  to  be  hypercritical,  but  it  is 
necessary  to  point  out  that  Gaby  is  22  inches  at  the  shoulder, 
and  Count  Wind'em,  his  best  ancestor,  was  nearer  25  than 
24  inches.  This  is  too  much  to  lose  in  twenty  years,  for  it 
really  means  losing  nearly  half  the  size  of  the  dog. 

It  is  pleasing  to  note  that  the  American  cross  with  the  old 
blood,  even  with  small  dogs  on  both  sides,  seems  to  recover  the 
lost  size.  This  is  a  great  point ;  because,  although  a  good  little 
one  is  enormously  better  than  a  lumbering  big  one,  yet  a  good 
big  one  is  out  of  all  proportion  better  than  the  same  form  on  a 
small  scale. 

A  few  years  ago,  Mr.  B.  J.  Warwick  was  winning  all  before 
him  in  the  field  with  setters  of  very  small  size.  The  blood  of 
most  of  them  was  a  blend  of  all  the  sorts  named  above  except 
the  American  strain.  That  is,  they  were  descended  from  Ranger 
on  one  side  and  from  the  late  Mr.  Heywood  Lonsdale's  sort  on 
the  other.  They  were  beautifully  broken,  had  for  the  most  part 
capital  noses  and  plenty  of  sense,  but  few  of  them  are  likely  to 
breed  dogs  better  than  themselves,  because  they  mostly  lacked 
external  form    and   size.      Many  of  them  were   bred   by  Mr. 


ENGLISH  SETTERS  147 

Elias  Bishop,  who  ran  a  better  sort  in  the  Puppy  Stakes  in  the 
spring  of  1906, — Ightfield  Mac, — more  fitted,  in  his  then  form, 
for  American  than  for  English  field  trials.  The  demand  there 
is  for  a  dog ;  here  it  is  a  little  too  much  for  a  breaker.  It  is 
a  question  whether  allowance  enough  is  made  at  field  trials  for 
the  indiscretions  of  youth.  The  consequence  of  judging  puppies 
as  if  they  were  old  dogs  is  that,  when  they  become  so,  they  are 
not  a  very  high-couraged  lot,  and  the  winning  puppies  seldom 
become  mature  cracks. 

There  is  plenty  of  evidence  that  the  encouragement  of 
docility  instead  of  determination  in  puppies  has  done  more  to 
run  down  English  setters  than  even  in-breeding  itself.  The 
doer  of  the  most  brilliant  work  will  go  out  if  he  rnakes  one 
mistake.  In  practice  there  is  always  a  duffer  that  does  not 
make  one. 

That  is  the  worst  thing  that  can  be  said  against  field 
trials,  and  it  has  only  been  true  of  late  years.  The  old  style 
of  judging  was  to  select  the  most  brilliant  worker  for  highest 
honours,  and  under  it  English  setters  made  rapid  strides. 

This  handicapping  of  great  capacity  goes  farther  than 
merely  turning  a  dog  out  for  a  trivial  fault.  The  judges  often 
seem  to  demand  a  dog  with  small  capacity — that  is,  compared 
with  the  old  demand.  Here  is  a  comparative  instance.  In  1870, 
when  Drake  the  pointer  won  the  Champion  Slake,  he  and  a 
competitor  were  turned  off  in  a  field  through  which  there  ran  a 
line  of  hurdles  cutting  the  field  in  two.  Drake  disregarded  the 
hurdles  and  beat  the  field  as  if  there  had  been  none,  and  did  the 
whole  field  in  the  same  time  that  his  competitor  took  to  do 
the  half — that  is,  only  one  side  the  hurdles.  He  did  not  scramble 
it,  but  methodically  quartered  every  inch.  Precisely  the  same 
kind  of  field  occurred  at  the  National  Trials  in  1906;  but  when 
Pitchford  Duke  got  through  the  hurdles,  his  handler,  knowing  the 
feeling  of  judges  generally,  ran  after  him,  whistling  and  shouting, 
to  get  him  back  to  do  the  150  yards  wide  strip  that  the  hurdles 
divided  from  the  bulk  of  the  field.  It  is  true  that  Pitchford 
Duke  did  not  make  as  if  he  was  going  to  quarter  the  whole 
field  in  Drake's  style,  but  had  it  been  Drake  himself  the  breaker 


148  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

would  probably  have  done  just  as  he  did  for  Duke,  and  scolded 
him  for  what  was  held  to  show  brains  and  capacity  in  1870  by 
some  of  the  best  sportsmen  in  the  country  who  were  acting  as 
judges,  and  at  a  time  when  everybody  knew  what  dogs  should 
do,  because  everybody  used  them. 

However,  it  is  dangerous  to  say  a  word  by  way  of  criticism 
of  an  institution  to  which  we  owe  it  that  setters  and  pointers 
have  been  preserved  at  all.  We  should  have  had  no  dog 
with  a  will  to  imitate  Drake  had  it  not  existed.  The  only 
object  of  saying  anything  is  to  appeal  for  a  little  more  value 
for  "class,"  and  a  little  less  for  trick  performers.  It  is  very 
difficult  to  give  effect  to  a  wish  of  this  sort  in  judging,  because 
faults  are  facts,  and  facts  are  stubborn  things ;  whereas  class  is 
generally,  but  not  always,  a  matter  of  opinion,  on  which  judges 
may  hold  conflicting  views.  The  author  was  once  hunting  a 
brace  of  setters  at  the  National  Trials,  and  they  had  done  such 
remarkable  work  that  the  late  Sir  Vincent  Corbet,  who  was 
judging,  was  heard  to  tell  someone  "  that  black  -  headed  dog 
has  been  finding  birds  in  the  next  parish."  Much  of  this  work 
had  been  done  under  the  slope  of  a  hill,  where  the  spectators 
could  not  see  it ;  they  had  formed  a  semicircle  at  the  other  end 
of  the  last  field  that  the  brace  had  to  do,  and  the  black-headed 
dog  came  up  the  field,  treating  as  a  fence  the  line  of  spectators 
who  had  formed  up  100  yards  or  so  within  the  field.  He 
hunted  up  to  their  toes  before  turning  along  the  line,  and 
dropped  to  a  point  within  10  yards  of  several  hundred  people, 
who  had  been  standing  there  so  long  that  they  were  obviously 
and  audibly  quite  sure  there  was  nothing  at  the  point.  When 
the  author  came  up,  he  could  not  move  the  pointing  dog ;  the 
latter  evidently  thought  he  was  too  near  already,  and  he  had  a 
brace  of  partridges,  much  to  everybody's  surprise.  This  dog. 
Sable  Bondhu  by  name,  was  the  very  highest  "  class,"  and  to 
show  how  right  the  judge's  estimate  of  him  was,  it  may  be 
recorded  that  he  was  the  performer  of  a  very  remarkable  piece 
of  work  on  grouse. 

It  was  late  in  the  season,  and  we  had  been  hunting  all  the 
morning   and    finding   comparatively   few   grouse    on    a   beat 


-J  5 


ENGLISH  SETTERS  149 

generally  full  of  birds.  At  last  Sable  got  a  point  from  the 
top  of  a  "  knowie,"  and  with  his  head  so  high  that  it  gave  the 
impression  that  the  birds  must  be  a  very  long  way  off.  In 
starting  to  go  to  him,  the  author  happened  to  see  the  grouse  in 
a  large  pack  standing  with  their  necks  up  on  another  "  knowie," 
about  400  yards  away  from  the  pointing  dog.  That  explained 
the  absence  of  grouse :  they  had  packed  upon  a  moor  where 
they  were  supposed  never  to  do  so.  More  with  the  object  of 
scattering  them  than  expecting  to  get  near  enough  for  a 
shot,  we  formed  single  file,  and  two  guns  and  a  gillie,  without 
going  near  Sable,  started  to  circle  the  grouse  and  get  ahead  of 
them,  so  as  to  put  them  between  the  guns  and  the  dog. 
Strangely  enough,  they  gradually  sank  down  and  hid,  and  we 
did  get  quite  close  to  them,  and  at  the  risk  of  being  branded 
poacher,  truth  compels  the  confession  that  we  picked  up  five 
brace  for  our  four  barrels,  and  besides,  scattered  the  birds  in 
every  direction.  Sable  never  moved  until  he  was  wanted  to 
assist  in  finding  the  dead  birds.  Those  who  do  not  know  what 
very  bad  eyes  dogs  have,  might  think  he  had  seen  the  birds,  but 
this  was  not  so.  The  volume  of  scent  made  it  recognisable 
at  such  a  distance,  and  enabled  not  a  speculative,  but  a  certain, 
point.  The  author  has  many  times  seen  such  points  obtained 
at  200  yards  at  a  single  brood  of  grouse,  and  at  more 
than  100  yards  at  a  pair  of  partridges.  Nothing  like  this 
can  ever  be  done  by  a  dog  that  has  not  "  class "  ;  but  field 
trials  often  have  been  won  by  dogs  of  no  class.  That  cannot 
be  helped,  but  it  must  always  be  regretted.  The  no  class 
sort  referred  to  are  meetly  called  "  meat  dogs "  in  America, 
because  sportsmen  there  think  there  is  no  object  in  using  them 
except  the  requirements  of  the  "  pot." 

Since  the  above  was  written,  it  has  become  known  that, 
when  in  America  in  1904,  the  author  selected  a  couple  of 
unbroken  puppies  of  eight  and  ten  months  old,  of  the  straight- 
bred  sort,  for  Captain  H.  Heywood  Lonsdale,  and  that,  in  spite 
of  quarantine  for  six  months,  which  damaged  them  exceedingly, 
Scott,  a  capital  breaker,  has  succeeded  in  perfecting  one  of 
them.    This  dog  is  known  as  Ightfield  Rob  Roy,  and  with  much 


ISO  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

in  hand  he  beat  all  the  best  pointers  and  setters  in  the  country 
at  the  Gun-dog  League's  Field  Trials  in  July  last,  upon  the 
grouse  moors  of  Lord  Home. 

The  author  was  very  pleased  with  the  great  "  class "  shown 
by  Rob  Roy,  not  because  the  English  dogs  were  beaten,  but 
mostly  because  he  has  for  some  years  been  pointing  out  that 
America  was  assuredly  ahead  of  us,  because  of  our  attempt  to 
breed  docility  instead  of  to  break  it.  The  writer,  in  fact,  got 
almost  ashamed  of  comparing  the  dogs  of  the  present  to  their 
disadvantage  with  the  dogs  of  the  past,  and  felt  quite  sure  it 
would  have  been  much  more  popular  to  have  ignored  old 
memories  and  been  satisfied  with  the  best  of  English  field 
trial  work.  He  was  quite  aware  that  this  laudation  of  the  days 
and  dogs  that  are  gone  was  held  to  be  more  or  less  what  it  so 
often  is.  But  now  that  Captain  Lonsdale's  fine  setter  has 
demonstrated  that  a  single  selection  of  the  author's  in  America, 
with  every  chance  against  him,  has  been  able  to  establish  the 
accuracy  of  his  memory,  he  believes  that  crossing  will  result 
in  bringing  back  all  the  old  "class"  vitality  and  energy, 
especially  if  we  were,  like  the  Americans,  to  establish  real 
stamina  trials,  and,  like  them,  evolve  truer  formation.  Evolu- 
tion of  form  is  still  in  progress,  just  as  it  was  when  our 
ancestors  first  differentiated  the  setter  from  the  spaniel  by 
selection  of  the  best  workers. 

The  author  is  not  concerned  to  make  his  experiences  fit  in 
with  recent  Mendelian  or  anti-Mendelian  science.  You  can't 
make  a  silk  purse  out  of  a  sow's  ear,  nor  will  the  crossings 
of  plants,  guinea-pigs,  and  mice  conform  to  experiences  with 
higher  animals.  If  they  would,  Darwin's  pigeons  would  have 
taught  the  stud  master.  They  did  not.  That  there  is  this 
difference  one  statement  of  two  first  generation  facts  is  enough 
to  prove.  It  is  that  if  pure-bred  white  fowls  are  crossed  with 
another  race,  equally  pure-bred,  and  black,  the  offspring  will  all 
be  black  chicks  and  white  chicks,  with  no  mixtures.  On  the 
other  hand,  "  in  spite  of  all  temptations  to  belong  to  other 
nations,"  no  American  pure  negro  has  ever  been  able  to  call 
her  offspring  a  white  child. 


STRENUOUS   DOGS   AND   SPORT   IN 
AMERICA 

IN  all  the  countries  in  Europe  pointers  and  setters  are  used, 
but  there  are  districts  in  Hungary  and  Bohemia  where 
partridges  are  so  plentiful  that  this  canine  assistance  is  neither 
required  nor  employed.  The  style  of  shooting  in  these  districts 
would  make  the  use  of  any  dogs  except  retrievers  absurd,  and 
the  writer  never  has  been  able  to  detect  the  sportsmanship  in 
employing  dogs  when  they  are  in  the  way  and  hinder  sport. 
The  truest  pleasure  is  to  be  derived  from  getting  shots  by 
means  of  dogs  that  one  could  have  got  in  no  other  way. 
This  feeling  for  and  fellowship  with  pointers  and  setters  is 
to  be  found  in  the  wild  Highlands  and  Islands  of  the  west 
and  extreme  north  of  Scotland,  and  also  in  the  greater  part 
of  the  mountains  of  Ireland.  To  a  great  extent  it  is  also  felt 
in  pursuit  of  the  rype  of  Scandinavia,  and  of  the  partridge, 
wherever  that  bird  is  scarce  enough  to  require  much  finding 
before  it  is  shot.  But  throughout  Europe  there  is  more  or  less 
preservation,  more  or  less  boundary  to  be  protected,  with  the 
growing  demands  for  artificial  methods  first,  and  then,  a  little 
later,  the  substitution  of  men  for  dogs.  There  is  also  a  kind 
of  bastard  shooting  over  dogs,  in  which  a  line  of  guns  is  formed 
as  if  for  walking  up  the  game,  and  then  one  or  a  brace  of  dogs 
is  allowed  to  run  down  wind,  or  up,  according  to  the  require- 
ments of  the  line  of  guns,  and  with  no  thought  as  to  possibility 
of  the  wind  serving  the  dogs.  But  under  such  circumstances 
canine  assistance  is  in  a  false  position,  and  it  is  distressing  to 
see  what  happens.  A  pair  of  dogs  could  not  adequately  serve 
a  line  of  guns,  even  if  they  had  all  the  advantage  of  the  wind, 


152  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

and  it  may  be  safely  affirmed  that  when  any  attempt  is  made 
to  walk  up  game,  dogs  are  out  of  place,  except  as  retrievers  at 
heel.  On  a  Scotch  Highland  hillside  it  may  be  a  question 
whether  a  party  of  four  guns  can  kill  most  game  by  all  walking 
in  line  or  by  working  in  two  parties  and  shooting  over  dogs, 
but  in  the  former  case  there  is  a  better  way — that  of  driving  the 
game  to  the  guns,  which  saves  the  walking,  and  the  shooting 
becomes  more  exciting  because  more  frequent. 

But  dog  work  is  conducted  in  such  various  methods,  some 
of  which  are  so  little  removed  from  treading  up  the  birds,  that 
an  idealist  must  hesitate  to  affirm  that  it  is  always  preferable 
to  forming  line  and  walking  up  the  game.     There  is  an  idea 
that  the  place  to  loose  off  the  dogs  is  where  game  has  con- 
gregated, or  been  driven  into  good  cover,  so  that  points  may 
recur  at  every    lo  yards.      This  is  when  the  heavy  shooting 
occurs,  but  it  is  not  when  the  dog  is  most  indispensable.     The 
latter  happens  when  there  is  no  more  than  one  covey  to  every 
500  acres,  and  you  have  to  find  it  before  you  have  any  sport. 
Some  people  say  that  under  those  circumstances  they  would 
prefer  no  sport.     This,  however,  is  a  decadent  view.     We  all  of 
us  appreciate  sport  as  its  difficulty  increases,  and  a  bag  that  was 
good  enough  for  the  great  Duke  of  Wellington  and  for  Colonel 
Peter  Hawker  ought  to  be  good  enough  for  any  of  us  if  we  desire 
to  feel  ourselves  sportsmen.     The  author  has  no  word  to  urge 
against  big  bags  except  this  :  they  cannot  form  a  feature  of  every- 
day life  for  many,  if  for  any  of  us,  and  sport  can — provided  the 
anxiety  to  make  big  bags  because  they  are  the  fashion  does  not 
destroy  our  love  of  sport  for  its  own  sake.     The  writer  confesses 
to  being  one  of  those  selfish  creatures  who  is  supremely  happy  if 
he  has  satisfied  his  own  critical  spirit,  even  in  such  trifles  as  a 
day's  unwitnessed  sport  over  dogs,  the  stalking  of  a  blackcock  or 
of  a  stag,  the  capture  of  a  reluctant  trout,  or  the  killing  of  half  a 
score  of  driven  grouse  out  of  a  pack  without  a  miss.     He  is 
well  aware  that  either  of  these  may  be  the  harder  to  accomplish 
according  to  circumstances,  and  his  pleasure  is  based  on  the 
absence  of  anything  that  might  have  been  done  better.     Once 
in  his  life  he  sent  a  stag's  head  to  a  taxidermist,  and  then 


STRENUOUS  DOGS  AND  SPORT  IN  AMERICA     153 

changed  his  mind  and  would  not  have  it  home;  and  once  or 
'  twice  he  has  counted  his  kills  during  a  day,  but  never  made  a 
written  note  of  them.  It  has  always  appeared  to  the  author  that 
sport  is  its  own  reward,  and  that  records  are  rather  sad  reading, 
and  trophies  create  memories  of  the  noble  dead,  and  not  always 
pleasant  ones.  It  seems  easier  to  take  an  interest  in  other 
people's  records  than  in  one's  own,  and  to  admire  trophies  that 
one  did  not  victimise. 

Surely  a  true  spirit  of  sport  may  be  the  possession  of  one 
whose  whole  household  idols  are  his  gun  and  rifle,  and  whose 
total  impedimenta  are  a  portmanteau  and  gun-case.  The  greater 
one's  belongings,  and  the  more  one  grows  to  care  for  them, 
the  less  ready  one  becomes  to  go  far  afield  for  sport,  and  the 
more  one  is  inclined  to  cling  to  old  memories,  even  without 
the  assistance  of  trophies  and  private  written  records. 

Feats  of  sport  that  can  be  forgotten  are  not  worth  remem- 
bering, for  if  enjoyment  depended  upon  the  size  of  the  bag  or 
the  grandeur  of  a  trophy,  every  day  in  which  the  old  record  was 
not  beaten  would  be  a  day  lost,  whereas,  in  sport  for  its  own  sake 
alone,  every  triviality  is  supreme  for  the  time  being,  and  one  is  as 
keen  for  small  things  or  great  at  sixty  as  at  sixteen,  although — 
and  more  is  the  pity — a  great  deal  more  self-critical. 

The  author  has  not  ventured  to  trouble  the  possible  reader 
with  these  personal  reflections  without  a  purpose — a  purpose  of 
making  small  things  interesting,  if  that  may  be  in  an  atmo- 
sphere of  fashion  and  big  bags. 

An  American  prairie  chicken  and  a  quail  are  very  small 
birds,  and  nowhere  are  they  to  be  had  in  the  abundance  of 
Norfolk  partridges  or  Yorkshire  grouse.  But  they  are  as 
keenly  pursued  as  any  game  in  this  country,  and  the  writer  was 
at  least  as  gratified  with  small-bag  successes  as  he  has  ever 
been  with  bigger  bags  in  this  country. 

There  are  many  reasons  for  the  appreciation  of  even  small 
bags  of  prairie  chicken  or  quail.  One  is  that  the  birds  are  for 
the  most  part  for  those  who  can  find  them.  The  actual  shooting 
is  so  much  the  smaller  matter.  You  find  yourself  on  a  prairie 
apparently  as  big  and  as  flat  as  the  Pacific  Ocean.     In  the  far 


154  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

distance  you  may  observe  a  thin  line  of  smoke  as  of  a  steamer 
hull  down  ;  you  guess  it  at  lO  miles,  expecting  to  be  told  you 
have  doubled  the  distance.  Instead,  you  are  informed  it  is 
the  Trans-Continental  railway  train,  which  you  know  to  be 
40  miles  away  by  the  map.  You  may  shoot  to  it,  driving  your 
waggon  all  the  way,  as  the  dogs  work  to  the  sky-lines  on 
either  side  of  you,  never  stopping  until  they  get  a  point  or 
come  to  the  waggon  for  water.  When  they  do  point,  you 
drive  to  them,  it  may  be  a  mile,  before  taking  the  gun  from 
its  case  and  descending  from  the  waggon.  You  judge  of  your 
dogs,  not  by  their  "  treading  up  "  the  game,  but  by  their  sense 
in  only  hunting  the  habitat  of  game,  and  by  the  instinctive 
straightness  of  their  course,  first  to  the  whereabouts  of  birds, 
and  second  to  the  game  itself  With  that  40  miles  of  unbeaten 
prairie  in  front,  you  are  not  reluctant  to  leave  behind  unbeaten 
ground  that  your  dogs  repudiate,  especially  as  you  see  they 
do  believe  in  what  lies  ahead,  and  you  have  reason  to  know 
that  they  are  as  reliable  in  their  sense  of  "  bird  ground  "  as  in 
their  powers  of  smelling  the  game  itself.  The  Americans 
value  them  for  the  former  most  uncommon  quality,  which 
they  call  "bird  sense."  In  practice  it  means  both  the  greatest 
expenditure  and  economy  of  canine  energy. 

Change  the  locality  to  the  South,  in  those  winter  months 
when  all  the  Frozen  North  is  mantled  in  white,  and  when  the 
Ohio  and  the  big  lakes  are  solid  ice.  The  autumn  has  passed, 
and  Christmas  has  come  and  gone,  before  a  shot  is  fired  at 
the  quail  on  many  plantations.  The  brush  has  been  too  thick, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  standing  corn  and  the  cotton,  into  which 
it  is  not  "  good  form "  to  ride.  You  have  exchanged  your 
waggon  for  a  saddle-horse.  The  flat  prairie  has  given  place 
to  much  broken  and  rolling  ground,  much  natural  covert,  but 
distances  are  still  wide ;  quail  are  plentiful  for  these  parts. 
That  is  to  say,  there  may  be  a  brood  to  every  500  acres, 
perhaps  to  every  100  acres.  As  your  dogs  are  sent  off,  you 
take  care  that  they  are  not  deceived  as  to  the  way  you  are 
riding.  They  will  have  no  other  indication  as  to  your  where- 
abouts in  half  an  hour's  time,  by  when  they  will  assuredly  have 


STRENUOUS  DOGS  AND  SPORT  IN  AMERICA     155 

been  seen  once  or  twice.  Their  sense  of  locality  now  becomes 
of  as  great  importance  as  their  bird  sense.  If  they  had  not 
the  former,  they  could  either  not  go  out  of  sight,  or,  doing  so, 
would  be  lost.  They  may  be  the  other  side  a  hill  and  through 
a  wood  and  half  a  mile  away,  but  they  can  come  straight  back 
to  you  from  any  point,  provided  you  ride  straight.  If  you 
turn  when  they  are  out  of  sight,  you  defeat  them,  and  they 
lose  you.  In  such  country  as  this  it  is  not  surprising  that  one 
school  of  shooters  prefer  what  they  call  close  ranging  dogs, 
which,  however,  are  not  quarterers,  but  merely  dogs  of  lesser 
courage,  or  those  that  fear  to  be  lost.  But,  every  other  quality 
being  equal,  the  field  trials  are  won  by  the  fastest  stayers  of 
the  wide  ranging  variety,  but  such  as  do  not  lose  themselves 
and  do  find  game.  In  the  Champion  Stake  for  previous  field 
trial  winners  that  I  assisted  to  judge  in  1904,  the  rules  insist 
on  three-hour  heats,  and  in  practice  competition  demands 
these  heats  to  be  run  at  top  speed  throughout ;  but  this  speed 
in  no  sense  means  racing,  but  the  most  strenuous  hunting 
for  game. 

Although  the  close  ranging  school  condemn  high  ranging 
on  various  grounds,  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  when 
they  breed  a  litter  of  puppies  the  sires  they  use  are  those 
which  have  won  these  Champion  Stakes.  They  are  wise 
enough  to  know  that,  given  the  natural  canine  energy  in  their 
young  dogs,  they  can  turn  it  to  advantage  either  in  close  or 
wide  ranging,  or  merely  in  staying  longer  at  a  slower  pace. 

The  broods  of  quail  are  not  easy  to  find,  because  of  the 
strenuous  canine  work  required  to  cover  so  much  ground,  and 
the  bird  sense  necessary  to  enable  the  dogs  to  select  the  right 
ground  on  which  to  hunt.  When  the  brood  is  found  and 
flushed,  it  scatters.  Then  any  slow  dog  can  find  the  scattered 
birds,  and  this  is  when  the  bag  is  filled  ;  but  it  is  not  the  valued 
canine  quality,  for  the  very  reason  that  it  is  common  property, 
whereas  bird  sense,  sense  of  locality,  and  covey  finding  in  the 
highest  degree,  are  rare  traits  by  comparison. 

One  day  when  the  writer  was  shooting  in  Tennessee, 
his  host  had  out  three  handlers  of  dogs,  each  mounted,  and 


156  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

each  working  a  brace  of  field  trial  winning  setters  at  a  time, 
with  frequent  changes.  The  sound  of  the  horn  was  indicative 
of  a  point,  and  a  long  gallop  had  frequently  to  be  taken  to 
get  to  it.  When  the  beat  is  in  progress,  the  horses  usually 
travel  at  a  fox  trot,  or  about  six  miles  an  hour.  But  even  six 
crack  dogs  proved  none  too  many  for  sport,  so  scarce  are 
quail  in  some  parts,  and  in  this  particular  part  they  fairly 
swarmed  in  comparison  with  much  of  the  Frozen  North. 

These  high-couraged  dogs  that  seem  to  take  no  hint  from 
their  handlers,  but  to  think  entirely  for  themselves,  nevertheless 
have  but  to  see  their  handler  off  his  horse  to  take  it  for  a 
signal  to  quarter  the  ground  closely  for  scattered  quail,  or  to 
hunt  like  a  retriever  for  dead  birds.  Then  upon  the  handler 
mounting  again,  their  natures  seem  to  change  upon  the  instant, 
and  they  shoot  off  in  a  mighty  hurry  to  make  some  cast  that 
they  have  had  "  in  mind  "  probably  all  the  time  they  have  been 
doing  what  is  called  "  bird  work,"  as  tamely  as  and  obediently 
as  any  English  field  trialer. 

Some  people  look  upon  this  riding  to  pointers  and  setters 
as  new,  and  think  these  dogs  were  never  intended  for  any 
such  purpose.  On  the  other  hand,  it  appears  probable  that 
they  could  not  have  invented  their  bird  sense  and  sense  of 
locality,  which  are  doubtless  instinctive  and  hereditary.  It  is 
the  fashion  to  think  our  ancestors  were  slow  in  their  move- 
ments. So  they  were,  no  doubt,  when  they  could  not  be  quick, 
but  others  besides  Colonel  Hawker  knew  the  advantage  of 
bustling  along  after  partridges  by  means  of  a  shooting  pony 
and  quick  pointers ;  and  others  besides  Joe  Manton  have  found 
that  "going  slow"  was  not  the  royal  road  to  success,  nor  butter- 
milk as  good  for  pointers  as  for  points.  It  was  not  fair  of  the 
Colonel  to  prepare  certain  failure  by  means  of  buttermilk. 
Used  in  this  way,  the  shooting  pony  in  conjunction  with 
pointers  and  setters  is  not  often  seen  now  in  England,  but  it 
certainly  was  very  common  when  the  ridable  portions  of  the 
country  were  mostly  shot  by  the  assistance  of  those  dogs. 
It  is  probable,  therefore,  that  this  American  form  of  shooting, 
brought  to  perfection  there  by  means  of  field  trials,  is  really 


STRENUOUS  DOGS  AND  SPORT  IN  AMERICA     157 

more  like  English  shooting  at  the  dawn  of  the  nineteenth 
century  than  our  own  shooting  over  dogs  is  like  it. 

But  whether  that  is  so  or  not,  the  writer  is  certain  that 
this  strenuous  work  is  the  right  method  to  maintain  the  genera- 
tions of  the  dog,  and  that  there  would  be  no  sense  in  the 
theory  of  evolution  if  these  Champions  were  not  the  best 
dogs  to  breed  from.  At  any  rate,  although  the  Americans 
owe  to  us  all  their  breeds  of  pointers  and  setters,  no  recent 
importations  have  been  able  to  win  there,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  first  American  cross-breds  to  be  brought  over  have 
annexed  some  of  our  field  trials.  The  reference  is  to 
Mr.  A.  Hall's  Guiniard  Shot  and  Dash,  victors  in  a  brace 
stake  in  1905,  and  good  enough  with  a  little  luck,  and  in 
the  hands  of  any  but  a  novice,  to  have  beaten  the  best 
running  in  our  trials  that  year,  although  they  were  only 
four  days  over  the  age  of  puppies  when  they  competed 
against  old  dogs. 

Another  charming  method  of  shooting  is  found  still 
farther  South,  in  Georgia,  where  there  are  vast  areas  of  pine 
forests  and  quail  in  them. 

Here  it  is  common  to  drive  through  the  pathless  woods. 
The  waggons  are  often  driven  over  a  fallen  tree  that  to 
English  eyes  seems  to  bar  the  way.  It  is  an  article  of  faith 
that  if  the  horse  can  get  over,  the  buggy  will  follow. 

There  is  naturally  a  limit  to  one's  range  of  vision  amongst 
straight  stems,  although  there  is  no  brushwood  to  interfere, 
and  the  way  free  rangers  when  upon  the  point  are  found  in 
these  woods,  as  also  in  the  brushwood  outside,  is  by  means 
of  other  dogs ;  there  may  be  half  a  dozen  hunting  together, 
and  several  spare  animals  in  the  buggy.  If  careful  watching 
does  not  discover  the  last  direction  taken  by  the  dog  on  point, 
it  will  do  so  of  one  or  other  of  the  backing  dogs,  and,  failing 
that,  another  is  turned  out  to  look  for  the  out-of-sight  brigade. 
January  sport  is  like  driving  in  the  English  pine  districts  on 
an  early  September  day,  and  shooting  partridges  in  the  woods 
(for  the  "  quail  "  or  "  bob-whites  "  are  partridges,  and  not  quail) 
and  the  bracing  freshness  of  the  pine-laden  air  has,  with  good 


158  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

reason,  caused  New  York  fashion  to  winter  in  the  pine  districts 
of  Georgia,  of  which  Thomasville  is  a  good  specimen,  for 
sport  and  health. 

Since  writing  the  above,  a  puppy  the  author  selected  in 
America  in  1904,  then  eight  months  old  and  unentered,  has 
beaten  all  the  pointers  and  setters  at  the  grouse  trials  on 
Lord  Home's  beautiful  Lanarkshire  moors,  in  August  1906. 
This  is  Captain  H.  Heywood  Lonsdale's  Ightfield  Rob  Roy, 
and  very  fully  confirms  a  view  expressed  above,  that  the 
severest  tests  are  the  best  for  keeping  up  a  breed.  This  dog 
comes  of  the  remarkably  in-bred  race  referred  to  in  the  chapter 
on  English  setters,  and  it  need  not  be  mentioned  further, 
except  to  say  that  the  pure  breed  as  first-rate  performers 
came  to  an  end  in  this  country  owing  to  in-breeding,  without 
at  the  same  time  selecting  as  severely  for  vitality  as  the  field 
trial  system  does  in  America.  Selection  has  negatived  the 
well-known  influence  of  in-breeding  in  everything  except 
in  size.  This  pure  bred  in-bred  race  was  originated  over  there 
by  the  author's  selection  for  Americans  of  dogs  all  descended 
from  those  six  setters  named  in  the  chapter  on  English  setters, 
and  picked  and  recommended  from  the  kennels  of  the  late 
Mr.  Tom  Statter,  the  late  Mr.  Laverack,  the  late  Mr.  Barclay 
Field,  Mr.  Purcell  Llewellin,  and  others.  In  the  exported 
originals  they  were  Laverack  and  Rhoebe  crosses,  like 
Mr.  Barclay  Field's  Rock  on  the  one  hand ;  Laveracks,  like 
Mr.  Laverack's  Victress  (Dash  and  Moll) ;  Laverack  and 
Rhoebe  crosses  like  the  late  Mr.  Statter's  Rob  Roy ;  Duke 
and  Rhoebe  crosses  bred  by  Mr.  Statter,  of  which  strain  two 
big  bitches  were  sent  out ;  and  others  of  the  three  crosses, 
Duke,  Rhoebe,  and  Laveracks,  like  Mr.  Llewellin's  Druid  and 
his  Count  Noble.  The  demand  for  them  arose  in  consequence 
of  some  letters  the  author  had  written  in  the  American  sporting 
press  referring  to  the  superiority  of  these  three  strains  over  any 
others  of  that  period.  The  author  even  ventured  to  give  them 
a  title,  namely  "  the  Field  Trial  breed,"  and  that  was  the  sole 
reason  why  they  were  kept  uncrossed  with  other  blood  in 
America.     It   is  this   uncrossed    blood   that   is   represented  in 


STRENUOUS  DOGSAND  SPORT  IN  AMERICA       159 

Captain  Heywood  Lonsdale's  Rob  Roy,  but  that  this  race 
of  in-breds  is  still  valuable  (and  in  America  by  far  the  most 
valuable)  is  owing  to  those  three  -  hour  stamina  trials  by 
which  the  sires  are  selected.  It  was  because  of  the  severity 
of  those  tests  that  the  writer  felt  sure  that  he  could  select  in 
America  superior  material  to  any  our  breakers  have  to  work 
upon.  That  idea  was  not  very  popular  when  it  was  first  stated 
some  five  years  ago ;  but  those  who  had  taken  the  opposite 
view  were  generous  when  they  saw  Rob  Roy's  performance, 
and,  as  one  of  them  remarked,  they  "  took  it  all  back."  The 
crosses  of  this  energetic  strain  cannot  fail  to  improve  our 
setters,  and  if  we  could  only  import  the  severity  of  selection 
of  the  best  winners  by  further  more  severe  stamina  trials, 
we  should  not  be  long  behind  America.  There  the  breed 
has  a  Stud  Book  registration  to  itself,  for  which  any  cross 
whatever  disqualifies.  They  are  registered  as  "Llewellin 
setters,"  which  was  for  some  reason  substituted  for  the  "  Field 
Trial  breed "  which  the  author  had  given.  In  conversation 
they  are  spoken  of  in  America  as  "  straight-bred,"  and  in 
England  the  best  designation  is  "  the  American  straight-bred 
setters,"  since  it  is  necessary  to  know  that  we  are  not  speaking 
of  the  same  breed  as  Mr.  Llewellin's  recent  field  trial  represent- 
atives, which  are  crossed,  and  could  not  be  registered  in  the 
American  Stud  Book  as  Llewellin  setters  or  straight-bred  ones. 
About  thirty-five  field  trials  for  pointers  and  setters  are  held 
every  year  in  America,  and  honours  rarely,  if  ever,  fall  on 
any  other  race  except  setters,  either  straight-bred  or  having 
90  per  cent,  of  the  blood,  and  on  the  pointers. 


THE   IRISH   SETTER 

FASHION  has  made  the  Irish  setter  a  red  dog,  whereas 
there  used  to  be  many  more  index  dogs  of  Erin  red- 
and-white  than  red.  Fashion  in  this  case  has  been  the  dog 
show,  but  if  that  had  been  all  the  result  of  its  influence  the 
author  would  have  been  content.  It  is  the  Irishmen  who  are 
most  concerned,  and  the  fact  that  the  Irish  setter  is  the  worst 
colour  in  the  world  to  see  in  a  Scotch  mist  can  be  well  under- 
stood not  to  matter  in  Irish  atmosphere  and  manners  of 
thinking.  Between  1870  and  1880  the  dog  shows  had  attracted 
most  of  the  handsomest  dogs  in  Ireland,  and  many  of  these 
were  very  good  workers. 

From  time  to  time  an  Irish  setter  has  been  good  enough  to 
compete  with  success  at  English  field  trials,  and  although  on 
occasion  such  an  animal  has  carried  all  before  it  in  its  stake, 
neither  in  England  nor  America  has  one  of  the  breed  ever  won 
a  Champion  Stake,  so  that  probably  it  will  be  considered  fair 
to  say  that  poor  competition  has  brought  the  Irish  to  the  front 
when  by  chance  they  have  come  out  first  at  field  trials.  The 
author  has  seen  and  shot  over  many  charming  red  setters, 
but  he  has  never  seen  a  really  great  dog  of  that  breed — that 
is,  not  a  dog  in  the  same  class  with  the  pointers  Drake  and 
Romp's  Baby. 

The  best  Irish  setter  the  writer  ever  shot  over  had  the 
peculiar  luck  of  always  finding  birds  when,  by  the  manners  of 
other  dogs,  there  appeared  to  be  none  about.  Many  a  time 
has  a  bad  day  been  redeemed  by  letting  off  this  beautiful  red 
dog,  a  son  of  the  field  trial  winner  Plunket.  To  some  good 
judges  of  dog's  work  the  field   trials   appeared   to   be  at  the 

160 


THE  IRISH  SETTER  i6i 

mercy  of  this  setter ;  but  he  had  a  peculiarity  often  to  be  found 
in  those  of  his  race — he  would  only  hunt  for  blood,  and  con- 
sequently out  of  the  shooting  season  he  was  as  useless  as  an 
ill-broken,  careless  puppy.  He  would  run  up  birds  without 
appearing  to  smell  them  before  they  rose,  or  to  see  them  after- 
wards. Instead  of  waiting  on  your  every  wish,  as  he  did  in  the 
shooting  season,  he  took  no  interest  whatever  in  the  proceedings, 
and  you  could  not  cheat  him  into  believing  business  was  meant 
by  the  use  of  blank  or  any  other  cartridges.  It  is  easy  to 
defend  such  a  characteristic  in  individual  or  race  on  the  ground 
that  it  shows  their  sense.  So  it  does,  no  doubt,  but  it  also 
shows  that  the  questing  instinct  is  weak  in  them,  and  there  are 
good  reasons  for  preferring  it  to  be  very  strong.  The  breaking 
season  is  the  spring,  and  a  dog  that  will  not  hunt  for  all  it  is 
worth  then  cannot  be  broken.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  only  few 
Irish  setters  ever  are  highly  finished.  More  than  half  of  those 
that  have  come  to  field  trials  have  been  unsafe  in  the  abode 
of  a  hare.  At  the  same  time,  those  that  are  taken  to  spring 
field  trials  hunt  well  enough,  but  of  course  these  are  a  very 
small  proportion. 

In  popular  opinion  the  greatest  fault  is  that  the  race  carry 
low  heads ;  at  the  same  time,  this  carriage  does  not  invariably 
mean  bad  "  noses."  The  writer  has  seen  an  Irish  setter  turn  a 
complete  somersault  over  its  own  nose,  which  it  ran  against  a 
stiff  furrow  of  a  fallow  field  ;  but  this  one  had  a  good  nose, 
although  not  the  very  best.  The  author  was  judging  one  year 
at  the  National  Field  Trials  with  Mr.  George  Davies,  of 
Retriever  fame,  when  Colonel  Cotes'  fast  and  good  pointer  Carl 
was  sent  off  against  an  Irish  setter  belonging  to  Mr.  Cheetham. 
The  latter  never  lifted  his  nose  in  hunting  or  in  drawing  to 
game  more  than  would  miss  the  buttercups,  but  nevertheless, 
from  behind,  he  again  and  again  found  partridges  that  the  other 
dog,  much  nearer,  had  failed  to  detect.  Carl  was  very  fast  and 
the  Irish  setter  very  slow,  but  the  former  was  beaten  pointless. 

There  is  a  fiction  that  Irish  setters  are  faster  than  other 
dogs,  but  this  is  not  the  case.  It  is  much  more  usual  to  see 
them  out-paced,  as  in  the  above-named  instance.     It  may  be 


1 62  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

that  they  generally  have  so  merry  a  stern  action  that  they  look 
to  be  bustling,  when  in  fact  their  actual  getting  over  the 
ground  is  not  fast.  Their  low  noses  cause  them  to  take  very 
narrow  parallels  when  they  are  careful,  so  that  if  they  are 
judged  by  the  ground  they  actually  cover  or  beat  they  are 
usually  of  less  capacity  than  their  only  moderate  speed  suggests. 
They  ought  to  last  well  at  the  pace  they  go,  but  although 
stamina  is  said  to  be  another  of  their  strong  points  over  English 
setters,  the  author  has  known  many  of  the  latter  breed  that 
could  do  more  work  than  any  Irish  setter  he  has  seen.  These 
have  included  some  of  the  best  Irish  setter  winners  at  field 
trials.  But  years  ago  there  were  Irish  dogs  that  could  go  a 
good  pace  and  stay  well.  They  were  bigger  dogs  than  those 
which  win  at  shows  now,  and  looked  more  like  workmen.  It 
is  to  be  feared  that  breeding  for  show  points  has  evolved  a 
bustling  and  busy  rather  than  a  business-like  race.  They  are 
now  smaller,  shorter,  especially  in  the  quarters,  and  more 
upright  in  the  shoulder,  than  the  best  of  the  old  sort.  There 
is  not  now  anything  at  all  like  Palmerston  and  Kate,  winners 
at  Birmingham  about  the  same  time.  The  last-named  was 
probably  as  well  made  and  as  setter-like  as  any  dog  could  be, 
and  to  compare  the  present  show  setters  with  her  is  like  com- 
paring a  polo  pony  with  a  Derby  winner.  At  the  spring  field 
trials  of  1906  only  one  Irish  setter  was  entered,  and  that  one 
was  far  from  being  even  moderate  in  its  work. 

There  may  be  dogs  of  the  old  type  hidden  away  in  Ireland, 
and  if  so  they  are  much  more  worthy  of  attention  than  those 
which  for  so  long  have  been  bred  for  show  points.  The  best 
Irish  setters  the  author  has  seen  for  the  last  ten  years  are  those  of 
Mr.  Cheetham.  This  gentleman  kept  them  for  grouse  shooting 
in  the  Lews,  and  as  his  shooting  was  late  in  the  year,  when  the 
heat  had  departed,  they  were  admirably  suited  for  the  purpose. 

The  opinions  given  are  of  course  based  upon  comparisons 
of  the  breed  with  the  very  best  of  other  races  of  setters  and 
pointers.  There  is  one  point,  however,  in  which  the  Irish  setters 
seem  to  be  the  inferiors  of  all  others — namely,  the  large  pro- 
portion   of  inferior   animals    bred,   compared   with   the   small 


THE  IRISH  SETTER  163 

number  up  to  a  fair  English  setter  working  standard.  This 
remark  has  reference  to  the  natural  ability,  and  not  at  all  to  the 
difficulty  of  breaking  the  breed.  The  latter  charge  against 
them  is  true  also,  but  only  because  their  excitement  is  greater 
than  their  love  of  questing.  Mostly  they  would  rather  chase 
a  hare  than  point  a  bird.  It  has  been  said  of  them  that  they 
want  breaking  afresh  every  year,  but  that  has  not  been  the 
experience  of  the  author,  who  has  invariably  found  that  a 
thoroughly  broken  dog  is  broken  for  life,  of  whatever  breed  it 
may  happen  to  be. 

Irish  breaking,  however,  has  not  always  been  very  thorough. 

It  has  sometimes  been  said  of  the  old  dogs  of  Ireland  that 
they  required  half  a  day's  work  before  they  were  steady.  In 
that  case,  they  would  require  similar  renewal  of  breaking  every 
day,  and  the  author  has  made  the  observation  that  such  dogs 
are  too  wild  all  the  morning  and  too  tired  all  the  afternoon  to 
be  a  pleasure  to  shoot  over. 

But  they  are  not  all  hard  to  break  ;  some  of  those  which  are 
not  too  excitable  are  very  collie-like  in  their  intuition  of  your 
wishes  and  their  anxiety  to  obey  them. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  the  Irish  have  always  held  their  field 
trials  in  the  autumn. 

An  old  writer  says  that  the  English  claim  theirs  as  the  true 
English  spaniel,  whereas  the  Irish  claim  theirs  to  be  the  real 
true  English  spaniel.  This  is  not  very  informative.  The  dogs 
alluded  to  were  of  course  both  setters,  but  of  what  colour  we 
are  not  told  in  respect  of  the  Irish  dog. 

The  author  shot  over  the  celebrated  field  trial  winner 
Plunket  for  several  seasons  and  ran  him  at  field  trials,  but 
after  he  had  turned  two  years  he  was  little  use  in  the  spring, 
whereas  he  won  well  in  the  autumn,  when  game  was  shot  to  his 
points.  In  this  he  was  similar  to  a  much  better  dog,  his  own 
son,  already  referred  to.  Plunket  was  a  fast  dog,  and  his  bold- 
ness and  beauty  in  going  up  to  game  was  quite  remarkable,  as 
he  would  draw  up  to  birds  at  racing  speed,  as  if  he  meant 
catching  them,  but  stopped  suddenly  and  in  time.  Then,  when 
they  ran  away  from  his  point,  the  moment  he  was  ordered  to 


i64  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

draw  on  he  would  again  dash  forward,  and  again  locate  his  game 
with  equally  sudden  points.  But  the  majority  of  good  English 
setters  at  that  time  could  out-stay  him,  and  particularly  the 
Laverack  setters  Countess  and  Nellie,  with  which  he  often 
worked,  could  have  killed  him.  Mr.  O'Callaghan's  setters  were 
rarely  good  enough  to  go  to  field  trials,  and  although  two  of 
them  won  there,  they  were  very  lucky  to  do  so.  Perhaps  these 
dogs  deteriorated  less  than  any  other  breed  that  were  bred  for 
show,  or  perhaps  it  would  be  safer  to  say  they  declined  in  work 
slower  than  others,  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  they  were  on  the 
down  grade,  not  only  in  work  but  in  true  setter  appearance. 
That  they  were  as  pretty  as  any  dogs  could  be  at  one  time  is 
freely  admitted,  but  they  had  lost  three-parts  of  the  scope  of 
Palmerston  and  Kate,  and  their  character  of  work  was  spaniel- 
like rather  than  setter-like — in  fact,  just  what  their  looks  led  one 
to  expect  they  would  prove  to  be. 

Unfortunately,  the  author  has  never  seen  the  Irish  field 
trials :  the  reason  is  that  the  English  pointers  have  usually 
proved  better  than  the  Irish  setters,  so  that  there  seemed  to  be 
nothing  novel  to  see  by  going.  But  it  is  very  difficult  to  believe 
that  the  show  Irish  setters  that  usually  represent  the  breed  at 
English  trials  are  the  best  workers  of  the  race.  The  character 
of  the  breed  when  the  author  first  saw  it  at  work  in  the  sixties 
was  distinctly  setter-like,  and  not  spaniel-like. 

There  has  been  a  great  deal  of  controversy  upon  how  the 
dark-red  colour  arose.  Mr.  John  King,  who  knew  more  of  Irish 
setters  than  any  other  man  known  to  the  author,  affirmed  that 
red-and-white  was  the  original  colour,  and  the  general  opinion 
was  that  those  of  the  last-named  markings  were  the  most  easy 
to  break.  All  the  most  setter-like  Irish  that  have  come  before 
the  author  have  had  more  or  less  white  upon  them,  and  as 
colour  certainly  denotes  blood  or  origin,  and  the  manner  of 
hunting  of  the  whole-red  dogs  is  spaniel-like,  it  does  not  seem 
to  be  unlikely  that  the  springer  spaniel,  the  colour  of  a  blood 
bay  horse  without  a  white  hair  spoken  of  by  a  Suffolk  parson 
in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  may  have  had  a  good 
deal  to  do  with  the  origin  of  the  red  Irish  setter.     At  any  rate. 


THE  IRISH  SETTER  165 

no  other  setters  or  spaniels  of  the  colour  can  be  traced  in  the 
early  history  of  what  was  then  the  English  spaniel,  or  the  setter. 

The  same  writer  says  that  the  English  spaniels  (setters) 
were  of  two  colours,  "  black-and-tan  "  and  "  red-and-white,"  so 
that  there  is  another  possible  origin  of  the  whole-coloured  red 
dogs.  Black-and-tan  setters  often  produced  a  red  dog,  but  not 
the  Irish  dark  rich  red.  This  red  puppy  in  the  litter  might 
have  arisen  from  an  Irish  cross,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  might 
have  been  a  blend  with  the  lemon-and-white  coloured  English 
setters,  or  the  result  of  puppies  following  the  markings  of  one 
ancestor  and  the  colour  of  another.  Those  that  the  author  bred 
from  black-and-tan  parents  had  no  dark  hairs  to  suggest  their 
origin,  but  neither  had  they  the  rich  chestnut  of  the  Irish  setter. 
The  writer's  experience  of  breeding  dogs  inclines  him  to  the 
belief  that  the  spaniel-like  tendency  of  the  breed,  now  that  it 
is  selected  for  all-red  colour,  is  proof  not  only  of  its  spaniel  but 
probably  of  a  springer  origin.  Their  excitement,  their  merry 
low-carried  sterns,  and  their  noses  on  the  ground,  speak  like  an 
open  book  to  one  who  has  bred  and  watched  the  breeding  of  all 
races  of  setters  for  forty  years,  and  has  assured  himself  that 
selection  for  colour  is  the  automatic  selection  of  character  usually 
found  with  that  colour. 

The  late  Mr.  Laverack  was  of  opinion  that  crossing  his 
black-and-whites  with  the  lemon-and-whites  of  the  same  litter 
was  in  fact  equivalent  to  cross  breeding.  However,  he  lived  to 
introduce  red  dogs  in  his  breed,  so  that  the  former  kind  of 
crossing  does  not  do  everything.  There  is  no  doubt  that  size 
and  fertility  suffer  by  this  method,  but  however  often  the  in- 
cestuous breeding  is  repeated  such  a  thing  as  a  blend  of  the 
two  colours  was  almost  unknown — that  is  to  say,  when  a  liver- 
and-white  one  did,  very  rarely,  make  its  appearance,  Mr. 
Laverack  himself  traced  it  to  a  former  cross  with  the  Edmund 
Castle  breed  of  liver-and-white  setters.  There  was  always  a 
difference  other  than  colour  between  the  lemon-and-white  and 
the  black-and-white  brothers  and  sisters — a  difference  which 
suggested  two  distinct  sources  of  origin  of  not  at  all  related 
breeds.     Consequently,  if  the  red-and-white  has  not  been  entirely 


l66  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

eliminated  from  the  Irish  setter,  and  if  they  sometimes  do  revert, 
the  author  would  expect  the  reversions  to  be  more  setter-like 
and  less  spaniel-like  than  the  present  show  Irish  setters,  and  to 
be  more  like  Dr.  Stone's  Dash  and  the  Kate  and  Palmerston 
already  mentioned. 

Since  writing  the  above,  the  author  remembers  that  on  one 
occasion  he  bred  from  an  Irish  dog  and  a  black-and-tan  bitch, 
with  the  result  that  the  puppies  were  liver-coloured.  Yet  when 
two  black-and-tans  were  bred  together  thirty-five  years  ago,  there 
were  usually  a  couple  of  red  puppies  in  the  litter  showing  neither 
liver,  black,  or  black  tinge,  or  even  dark-red  colours.  This  does 
not  support  the  theory  of  a  black-and-tan  origin  of  the  whole 
colour. 

The  collie-like  sense  of  the  Irish  setter  has  been  referred  to, 
and  a  case  of  the  kind  may  be  of  interest.  In  1873  the  author 
was  shooting  along  the  shores  of  a  loch  in  Inverness-shire, 
hunting  a  brace  of  setters,  one  of  which  was  a  red  Irish  puppy. 
A  grouse  was  killed  that  fell  out  into  the  lake,  there  about  a 
mile  wide  and  several  miles  long.  The  dogs  dropped  to  shot, 
and  there  lay  while  the  party  waited  to  make  sure  that  the  wind 
would  not  bring  in  the  grouse,  for  we  had  no  retriever  or  any 
setter  that  had  ever  retrieved.  It  became  evident  at  the  end  of 
a  few  minutes  that  the  grouse  was  slowly  drifting  away,  and  the 
order  was  given  to  continue  the  beat,  leaving  the  bird  to  its  fate. 
But  the  young  red  setter  was  no  sooner  on  its  legs  than  it 
darted  straight  to  the  lake,  jumped  in,  swam  to  the  grouse, 
brought  it  to  land  and  there  dropped  it,  shook  itself,  and  started 
to  hunt  for  more  live  birds. 

That  was  the  first  and  also  the  last  bird  it  ever  retrieved, 
although  it  was  constantly  encouraged  to  make  further  attempts. 
Of  course  this  looks  like  reason,  but  that  is  questionable.  At 
any  rate,  it  was  startlingly  smart,  and  about  as  unexpected  a 
canine  performance  as  could  be  conceived. 

Another  of  the  breed  was  so  smart  in  finding  wounded  game 
that  he  ended  as  a  retriever  in  Yorkshire  grouse  driving,  and 
was  said  to  be  better  than  several  retrievers,  although  he  never 
lifted  a  bird,  but  merely  put  a  foot  on  the  grouse  and  waited  to 


THE  IRISH  SETTER  167 

be  relieved,  when  he  would  go  quickly  and  straight  to  the  next 
wounded  bird,  and  so  on  until  all  were  found. 

It  is  probable  that  even  wild  grouse  do  not  often  fly  from 
a  dog  unless  they  associate  him  with  the  presence  of  man. 
When  using  a  parti-coloured  team  of  black-white-and-tan 
setters  with  some  lemon-and-white  dogs,  the  author  has  noticed 
that  wild  grouse  soon  got  to  expect  the  man  when  they  saw  the 
dogs,  and  he  has  found  that  by  using  a  red  dog  then,  the  birds 
behave  differently,  probably  mistaking  the  Irish  setter  for  a 
Scotch  fox.  At  any  rate,  when  they  ought  to  have  been  very 
wild  according  to  locality  and  season,  grouse  have  been  noticed 
to  treat  a  red  dog  with  a  certain  amount  of  resentment  and 
walk  away  from  him,  flicking  their  tails  as  they  move,  plainly 
expecting  the  rush,  and  unwilling  to  fly  before  it  came.  What 
they  obviously  did  not  expect  was  that  there  was  a  man  with 
a  gun. 


THE  BLACK-AND-TAN  SETTER 

A  SPORTING  parson  of  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century 
tells  us  that  the  English  setters  were  then  of  two  colours, 
red-and-white  and  black-and-tan.  Whether  the  author  meant 
to  say  black-white-and-tan  seems  a  little  doubtful,  but  in  any 
case  there  were  black-white-and-tan  setters  long  before  this,  as 
is  evidenced  in  one  of  Diirer's  pictures,  and  this  Flemish  artist 
died  in  1528.  When  this  picture  was  exhibited  at  the  Grosvenor 
Gallery  in  1 891,  it  escaped  the  notice  of  the  author  in  spite  of 
several  visits,  but  Mr.  Rawdon  Lee  describes  the  dog  illustrated 
as  a  black-white-and-tan  setter,  less  spaniel-like  and  more  on 
the  leg  than  the  modern  show  setter.  Then,  half  a  century 
later,  our  earliest  writer  on  the  dog  mentions  the  setter,  or  index, 
as  a  distinct  dog  from  the  spaniel,  and  at  the  same  time  throws 
doubt  upon  the  Spanish  origin  of  the  latter.  It  was  in  1570 
that  Dr.  Caius  of  Cambridge  wrote  upon  the  dog ;  unfortunately 
he  appears  to  have  known  nothing  except  the  duties  of  the 
setter,  for  he  does  not  describe  either  its  origin,  its  colour,  or 
appearance. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  Duke  of  Gordon  got  the  black-and- 
tan  colour  by  crossing  with  the  collie,  but  the  majority  of  the 
Gordon  Castle  dogs  were  black-white-and-tan,  and  some  were 
red-and-white.  That  is  to  say,  they  may  have  been  and  probably 
were  the  colours  that  the  eighteenth-century  writer  meant  when 
he  described  those  of  the  "  English  spaniel " — that  is,  the  English 
setter. 

About  1873  the  author  had  a  long  talk  with  the  late  Lord 
Lovat  and  his  keeper,  Bruce,  at  the  kennels  above  the  famous 

168 


THE  BLACK-AND-TAN  SETTER  169 

Beauly  pools,  that  the  same  good  sportsman  rendered  for  ever 
famous  by  his  wonderful  kills  of  salmon. 

It  was  an  article  of  faith  at  Beaufort,  where  the  kennel  book 
had  been  kept  up  since  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  that 
the  old  Duke's  Gordon  setters  and  their  own  living  setters  were 
identical  in  blood  and  appearance.  They  were  bred  together, 
and  after  the  Duke's  death  this  inter-breeding  was  kept  up 
between  Lord  Lovat's  and  the  other  kennels  which  had  the 
blood.  One  of  the  principal  of  these  was  that  of  Lord  Rosslyn, 
in  Fifeshire.  But  for  some  time  this  latter  exchange  of  blood 
had  been  dropped,  because  Lord  Rosslyn's  dogs  had  been 
crossed  with  the  bloodhound  to  get  nose,  or  so  Bruce  told  the 
author. 

What  it  did  get  was  colour — that  is,  a  bright  black-and-tan 
without  white ;  whereas  those  dogs  that  were  black-and-tan  in 
the  Lovat  kennel  had  white  feet  and  fronts,  but  a  very  large 
majority  had  body  white  as  well.  At  that  period  those  black- 
and-tan  setters  that  went  to  the  shows  were  of  two  distinct 
types :  one  lot  were  light-made,  active  dogs,  and  the  other,  in- 
cluding the  descendants  of  Rev.  T.  Pearce's  Kent  and  those  of 
Lord  Rosslyn's  blood,  were  very  heavy  in  formation.  Kent 
either  had  no  pedigree  or  a  doubtful  one,  but  was  all  the  fashion, 
and  whereas  a  first  cross  with  him  was  of  benefit,  in-breeding 
on  all  sides  to  him  has  rendered  the  black-and-tans  of  to-day 
lumbering,  and  so  constitutionally  weak  that  the  exhibitors 
have  been  unable  to  keep  the  breed  going,  although  they  have 
neglected  to  demand  working  ability  in  favour  of  the  points 
they  adore.  In  the  sixties  and  early  seventies  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Hutchinson,  of  Malmesbury,  wrote  a  good  deal  about  the  lighter 
strain  of  black-and-tan  setters  which  he  and  the  late  Sir  Fred 
Milbank  had  constantly  used  together  in  the  Lews.  The 
author  tried  these  dogs,  and  although  they  were  certainly  built 
for  racing,  they  unfortunately  could  not  race.  Their  breeder 
believed  nothing  could  live  with  them,  but  when  they  came  to 
be  measured  with  others  (and  that  is  the  only  way  to  be  sure) 
they  were  not  better  in  speed  than  the  heavy  Kent  and  Rosslyn 
dogs,  and  not  a  patch  upon  the  best  Irish  setters,  which,  again, 


I70  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

were  inferior  in  speed  and  stamina  to  the  best  English  dogs. 
In  1870  the  author  entered  a  lot  of  his  own  breeding  at  the 
National  Field  Trials.  They  were  reported  by  Mr.  J.  H.  Walsh, 
then  Editor  of  the  Field,  to  have  done  "  faultless "  work,  but 
were  slow  by  comparison  with  some  of  the  other  dogs,  and 
although  that  gentleman  did  not  think  they  were  beaten,  dis- 
appointment at  losing  did  not  disguise  from  their  owner  that 
they  were  out-classed.  From  that  time  to  quite  recently  no 
pure  bred  black-and-tan  setter  has  had  much  of  a  look  in 
at  field  trials,  until  Mr.  Isaac  Sharp  came  out  with  Stylish 
Ranger.  But  between  the  exquisite  breaking  of  Mr.  Sharp  and 
the  good  nose  of  his  dog  they  managed  to  get  in  front  of  all 
they  met,  at  a  period  when  field  trial  dogs  were  at  a  rather  low 
ebb,  and  when  in  the  judges'  opinions  breaking  counted  for  more 
than  work.  If  those  opinions  had  obtained  in  1870,  the  author 
might  have  won  all  before  him  with  his  black-and-tans,  but  in 
that  case  he  would  probably  never  have  acquired  the  knowledge 
of  the  infinitely  better. 

This  first  field  trial  attempt  was  made  with  the  heavy 
Kent  and  Lord  Rosslyn  sort.  The  author  bred  several  litters 
from  direct  crosses  of  Lord  Rosslyn's  best  dogs.  His  second 
attempt  to  win  field  trials  was  made  with  the  light-made  sort  of 
setter  from  the  Lews ;  but  results  were  always  the  same.  Still, 
although  those  results  were  true,  the  black-and-tan  breed  are 
never  seen  to  advantage  in  the  low  country  or  in  the  hot 
atmosphere  of  central  England.  They  become  twice  the  dogs 
late  in  the  season  and  on  the  high  grounds  of  Scotland,  and 
their  size  and  long  legs  are  not  a  hindrance  in  deep  old  heather. 
Moreover,  they  almost  break  themselves,  or  used  to,  thirty-six 
years  ago,  and  where  hills  have  moderate  angles  and  shooters 
interminable  patience,  they  are  comfortable  dogs  to  shoot  over. 
Like  the  Irish,  they  do  not  mind  wet  and  cold,  and  many  of 
them  have  good  noses  and  carry  high  heads.  But  they  were 
different  in  character  from  English  and  Irish  dogs.  Once,  and 
only  once,  the  author  has  seen  a  setter  draw  down  to  a  brook  at 
some  scent,  apparently  from  the  other  side,  but  instead  of  cross- 
ing to  investigate,  on  this  occasion  the  dog  stood  up  on  his  hind 


THE  BLACK- AND-TAN  SETTER  171 

legs  to  get  a  higher  current  of  the  tainted  air,  and  then,  having 
made  sure  in  that  way,  crossed  the  brook  and  pointed  on  the 
rising  ground  beyond.  This  performance  was  accomplished  by 
one  of  the  light-made  black-and-tans  of  the  Lews  blood  before 
spoken  of.  What  any  other  breed  of  setters  would  have  done 
would  have  been  to  swim  the  brook  and  try  the  other  side  in  the 
first  instance,  and  this  incident  sufficiently  explains  the  differ- 
ence of  temperaments  of  the  black-and-tan  setters  from  those 
of  other  races.  In  other  words,  the  wisdom  of  the  black-and- 
tans  is  partly  born  of  weakness  of  the  flesh,  for  although  bigger 
dogs  than  most  setters,  they  are  not  able  to  carry  the  extra 
weight. 

In  the  first  Bala  field  trials  the  Marquis  of  Huntly  had  a 
son  of  Kent  which,  according  to  the  points  awarded  by  the 
judges,  came  out  first.  But  the  judges  did  not  follow  their 
points,  and  gave  the  award  elsewhere.  The  author  did  not  see 
that  trial,  but  it  is  noteworthy  because  it  was  the  last  time  a 
black-and-tan  of  pure  blood  seemed  to  have  a  chance  of  victory 
over  the  best  of  the  period  until  the  time  of  Stylish  Ranger.  It 
is  also  noteworthy  because  the  dogs  beaten,  on  the  ground  of 
bad  breaking,  afterwards  proved  towers  of  strength  at  the  stud, 
whereas  the  victors  did  not.  The  beaten  included  Mr,  Tom 
Statter's  pointer  Major  and  Mr.  Armstrong's  English  setter 
Duke.  Probably  these  were  the  two  most  potent  influences  of 
setter  and  pointer  breeding  that  ever  lived. 

One  incident  in  the  breeding  of  black-and-tan  setters  did 
very  much  to  make  them  for  a  time  the  most  popular  breed. 
It  was  this.  Much  controversy  having  arisen  as  to  the  setter 
character  of  Kent,  a  great  dog-show  winner,  his  owner  asked 
the  Editor  of  the  Field  to  select  a  puppy  and  run  it  at  the  field 
trials.  This  was  done,  and  the  puppy  came  out  well,  and 
actually  beat  the  celebrated  Duke  on  one  occasion.  This  was 
naturally  accepted  as  proof  of  the  pure  breeding  of  Kent  and 
the  correctness  of  his  type.  What  it  probably  ought  to  have 
proved  was  that  Rex  (the  young  dog)  was  better  than  others, 
because  he  followed  in  instinct  the  pure  bred  side  of  his 
parentage,  and  received  vitality  from  a  not  very  remote  outside 


172  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

cross  of  blood.  Four  years  later,  Duke  was  sire,  or  grandsire, 
of  the  winners  of  first,  second,  third,  and  fourth,  at  the  National 
Field  Trials,  and  the  black-and-tans  had  practically  ceased 
competition  at  those  events. 

The  author  may  say  of  black-and-tans,  as  he  has  of  the 
red  Irish  setters,  that  he  never  saw  a  great  dog  of  the  breed, 
although  he  has  seen  many  good  ones.  Probably  the  best  that 
ever  ran  in  public  was  Mr.  Sharp's  Stylish  Ranger,  but  he  would 
not  have  beaten  the  1870  brigade  on  anything  but  breaking, 
or  rather  handiness;  for  Mr.  Sharp  could  put  him  anywhere 
by  a  wave  of  the  finger.  It  is  probable  that  there  are  better 
black-and-tan  setters  kept  in  Scotch  kennels  for  work  than 
those  which  go  to  dog  shows,  and  since  Ranger's  withdrawal 
and  exportation  they  have  ceased  again  to  appear  at  field  trials. 

They  have  been  too  long  bred  without  back  ribs,  with  light 
loins,  with  clumsy  shoulders  and  big  heads,  to  induce  the  belief 
that  by  selection  they  can  be  improved.  But  they  might  be 
placed  on  a  much  superior  level  by  means  of  a  cross  and 
selection  afterwards.  Mr.  Sharp's  celebrity  was  bred  by  Mr. 
Chapman,  who  is,  or  was,  a  dog-show  man.  It  is  necessary 
to  say  this  in  order  to  be  quite  fair  to  dog  shows ;  but  any 
attempt  to  improve  the  breed  by  crossing  would  be  most  likely 
to  succeed  by  a  cross  on  a  base  of  black-and-tan  setter  that  had 
been  kept  for  several  generations  for  work  only.  The  show 
points  valued  for  this  breed  are  really  not  setter  points  at  all. 
In  considering  the  possibility  of  improving,  it  is  always  neces- 
sary to  know  the  history  of  a  breed,  and  that  of  the  black-and- 
tan  is  undoubtedly  indicated  above.  There  is  evidence  in  Mr. 
Thomson  Gra.y's  Bo£-s  0/ Scoi/and,  ■published  in  1891,  to  show 
that  the  origin  of  the  Gordon  setters  was  as  suggested  above — 
that  is  to  say,  black-and-tan  and  lemon-  or  red-  and-white,  just 
what  the  old  Suffolk  sportsman  said  of  English  setters  fifty 
years  before  he  wrote  in  1775.  Mr.  Gray  says  there  were  also 
black-white-and-tans  and  liver-and-white  dogs. 

But  the  "  Gordon  setter "  never  meant  what  those  setters 
originated  from,  but,  on  the  contrary,  what  they  became  under 
the  last  Duke  of  Gordon,  and   this  we  have  ample  evidence. 


THE  BLACK- AND-TAN  SETTER  173 

from  Beaufort  Castle,  from  the  Duke  of  Richmond  and  Gordon's 
kennel,  and  from  Lord  Cawdor's  strain,  to  prove  was  black- 
white-and-tan,  and  that  was  also  the  colour  of  the  dogs  at  the 
dispersal  of  the  Duke  of  Gordon's  kennel  in  1837.  So  that  it 
is  a  mistake  to  call  black-and-tan  setters  Gordons,  for  although 
the  Duke's  celebrated  strain  was  partly  originated  from  dogs 
of  that  colour,  so  also  were  all  other  English  setters.  Gervaise 
Markham,  in  Hunger's  Prevention  ;  or  the  whole  art  of  fowling 
by  Land  and  Water,  in  1665,  speaks  of  black-and-fallow  dogs 
as  the  hardest  to  endure  labour,  so  that  there  is  no  doubt 
about  the  existence  of  black-and-tan  setters  before  the  Duke 
of  Gordon  started  to  pay  attention  to  setter  breeding.  There 
is  also  no  doubt  that  the  Duke's  dogs  were  bred  and  crossed 
in  colours  until  they  became  black-white-and-tan.  The  author 
has  shown  how  the  black-and-tan  colour  was  restored  in  the 
Gordon  of  the  present  time  by  the  bloodhound  cross,  and  it 
only  remains  to  say  that  the  reason  the  black-and-tan  colour 
is  now  accepted  as  that  of  the  Gordon  came  about  from  the 
early  classification  of  the  Birmingham  Dog  Show,  where  true 
Gordons  were  placed  in  the  English  setter  classes,  and  all  kinds 
of  black-and-tans  in  the  class  for  Gordons,  although  some  at 
least,  probably  many,  of  that  colour  were  not  Gordons.  That 
the  bloodhound  cross  destroyed  the  merits  of  the  various  races 
of  that  colour  may  be  gathered  from  two  facts.  One  was  that 
the  first  dog  show  was  won  by  a  black-and-tan,  and  the  other 
that  the  first  field  trial  was  also  won  by  a  black-and-tan. 
No  doubt  both  these  dogs  were  descended  on  one  side  or  other 
of  their  pedigree  from  the  Duke  of  Gordon's  dogs,  but  it  is 
doubtful  whether  they  got  their  black-and-tan  from  that  side. 
Their  pedigrees  can  be  looked  up  in  the  first  volume  of  the 
Stud  Book.  But  if  they  are  read  by  the  light  of  a  pedigree 
of  a  dog  that  belonged  to  the  author  and  was  of  much  the 
same  breeding,  a  pedigree  which  also  occurs  in  that  volume, 
it  will  be  seen  that  they  might  be  Gordons  only  so  far  as  they 
inherited  black-white-and-tan  blood,  and  were  of  other  breeds 
so  far  as  they  inherited  black-and-tan  blood.  To  make  what 
is  intended  clear,  the  entry  is  quoted  : — 


174  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

"  Bruce— Mr.  G.  Teasdale-Buckell's,  Wellesley  Hall,  Ashby- 
de-la-Zouch :  breeder,  owner,  born  1 869  (dead).  Pedigree :  By 
Lord  Rosslyn's  Rokeby  (No.  1622)  out  of  Blaze,  by  Old  Reuben 
out  of  Belle,  by  Kent  (No.  1600)  out  of  Duchess,  by  Nell  out 
of  Stella,  by  Lord  Chesterfield's  Regent  (purchased  at  the 
Duke  of  Gordon's  sale)  out  of  a  Marquis  of  Anglesea  bitch: 
Regent,  black- white-and-tan,  was  by  Old  Regent  out  of  the 
Duke  of  Gordon's  Ellen." 

Duchess  was  a  light-made  black-and-tan,  and  her  dam 
was  by  the  undoubted  black-white-and-tan  Gordon  for  which 
Lord  Chesterfield  gave  72  gs.  to  Tattersall's  at  the  Duke's 
dispersal  sale,  and  her  mother  was  a  Marquis  of  Angle- 
sea  bitch.  Where  did  the  black-and-tan  colour  of  Duchess 
come  from  ?  The  reply  is,  not  from  Stella  at  all,  but  from  Ned 
(mistakenly  entered  as  Nell)  in  the  pedigree  quoted ;  and  he  got 
his  colour  from  Mr.  F.  Burdett's  Brougham,  which  there  is 
nothing  to  show  was  a  Gordon  at  all,  although  he  was  descended 
from  black-and-tans  on  one  side  at  least.  This  same  Brougham 
became  the  ancestor  of  the  most  famous  breed  of  English 
setters — namely,  the  descendants  of  Mr.  Tom  Statter's  Rhoebe, 
winners  of  hundreds  of  field  trials  in  this  country  and  America, 
and  which  are  still  the  best  setters  there  are. 

But  when  the  breed  became  crossed  with  the  Lord  Rosslyn's 
and  Kent  strains  of  black-and-tan  blood,  it  practically  ceased 
to  be  the  setter  at  all  in  a  very  few  generations.  That  is  why 
any  attempted  revival  of  the  black-and-tans  ought  to  be  based 
on  dogs  the  ancestors  of  which  for  generations  have  been  good 
enough  to  keep  for  work,  and  with  no  ulterior  objects.  But  it 
would  be  an  uphill  business,  for  nothing  in  breeding  is  more 
certain  than  that  colour  is  indicative  of  blood,  and  to  select  for 
black-and-tans  would  be  to  select  the  wrong  type  a  hundred 
times  in  a  hundred  and  one. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  any  of  the  old  light-made  black-and- 
tan  dogs,  with  dish  faces  instead  of  hound  profiles,  could  be 
found,  the  black-and-tan  colour  is  so  prepotent  that  they  might 
have  any  cross  of  parti-coloured  strain  and  yet  perhaps  not 
show  it  in  the  colour  in  the  first  generation.     Although  black- 


THE  BLACK-AND-TAN  SETTER  175 

and-tan  is  a  much  more  prepotent  colour  than  any  parti-colour, 
it  is  not  so  much  so  as  the  whole  colours,  black  and  red. 
Probably  it  cannot  be  produced  by  breeding  these  two  last- 
named  together.  Then  facts  seem  to  indicate  that  the  ancestors 
of  our  setters  were  some  whole-coloured  races  or  black-and-tan 
dogs  of  some  wild  or  domestic  kinds. 

After  grouse  have  got  wild  to  a  team  of  light-coloured  dogs, 
some  shots  may  often  be  had  over  a  black-and-tan  setter. 
Possibly  the  birds  mistake  the  setter  for  a  collie,  and  the 
gunner,  if  suitably  dressed  in  imitation,  for  the  shepherd.  There 
are  occasions  when,  on  the  contrary,  the  grouse  are  more  afraid 
of  the  sheep-dog  than  any  other,  and  this  may  not  always  mean 
that  the  shepherd,  like  his  dog,  is  a  poacher. 

It  has  been  said  that  a  black-and-tan  is  a  bad  colour  to  see 
on  the  moors,  but  this  is  not  so.  No  sportsman  would  use  a 
black  coat  for  shooting,  because  it  is  more  conspicuous  than  any 
other,  and  what  is  true  of  the  man's  coat  is  true  of  the  dog's 
colour. 


RETRIEVERS  AND  THEIR  BREAKING 

RETRIEVERS  are  now  by  far  the  most  popular  gun-dogs 
in  this  country,  whereas  in  America  they  are  considered 
useless,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  that  are  kept  exclusively  for 
duck  shooting,  and  which  are  called  Chesapeake  Bay  dogs,  and 
are  a  distinct  breed  from  any  we  have  in  England.  Ninety- 
nine-hundredths  of  the  work  of  English  retrievers  is  on  land, 
and  although  a  retriever  can  hardly  be  called  perfect  unless  he 
will  hunt  in  water,  and  get  a  winged  duck  if  that  be  possible, 
yet  it  is  absolutely  impossible  to  have  a  dog  that  is  perfect  in 
everything  (or  so  it  appears),  and  therefore  a  shooter  exercises 
a  wise  moderation  in  his  demands  when  he  insists  on  perfection 
in  one  department  rather  than  moderation  in  all. 

People  purchase  and  use  retrievers  for  either  one  or  more 
of  several  reasons : — 

1.  Because  they  like  a  dog. 

2.  Because  they  like  to  collect  more  game  than  they  shoot. 

3.  Because  they  do  not  like  to  leave  wounded  things  to  die 

in  prolonged  pain. 

4.  Because  when  they  are  out  of  the  house  they  like  to  have 

something  that  they  can  order  about. 

5.  Because  the  dead  game  that  can  be  seen  is  easy  for  the 

dog  to  retrieve. 

6.  Because  the  wounded  game  that  cannot  be  seen  is  difficult 

for  men  to  pick  up. 

7.  Because  a  handsome  retriever  gives  a  finish  almost  equal 

to  neat  spats  to  a  shooter's  turn-out. 

8.  Because  it  is  much  easier  to  gain  credit  for  sportsman- 

ship at  a  dog  show  than  in  the  field  and  covert. 

176 


8^^ 


C    -.- 


C     xj 


COL.  C:.  J.  CO'IKS-    Pl'ICHFOKI)    .MAkSHAI..    SKXKKAL   TlMl-.S   A    FIELD   'JKLVL 

WLXXKR 


COL.    C.    j.    (  O'l  i:s     MONK.    .\X    IN  ri:RMi:i)l  A  IK    j.l.XK    LiyiAVKKX    THK 

I.MI'OR  ri',1)   !)()(,     Ill',  ()|-   i>:{2.   AM)   M.VR.SILXL,   XOW   IX    FULL  \l(;OUK. 

-MOXIv    LS    SAID    TO    ILW'I-;    l'.KI';.\    \K\i\    FA.SI 


RETRIEVERS  AND  THEIR  BREAKING  177 

9.  Because  there  is  a  demand  for  stud  services  at  remunera- 
tive fees. 

In  America  they  do  not  use  retrievers,  because  they  can 
make  all  their  pointers  and  setters  retrieve,  and  they  must 
have  some  of  the  index  dogs  or  they  get  no  sport,  so  that  they 
will  not  keep  two  dogs  to  do  the  work  of  one. 

In  England  there  are  three  sorts  of  retrievers,  and  crosses 
between  each,  besides  Labradors  and  spaniels.  These  three  are 
the  flat-coated  variety,  the  curly-coated  sort,  and  the  Norfolk 
retriever,  with  its  open  curl  or  wave  of  coat.  The  author 
believes  that  the  curly-coated  show  dog  is  now  useless,  that  the 
Norfolk  dog  has  gone  off  in  looks,  and  that  the  flat-coated 
retriever  is  open  to  regeneration  when  he  is  bred  more  wiry  and 
less  lumbering.  Besides  this,  many  of  the  breed  are  short  of 
courage  to  face  thorns,  and  slack  to  hunt  also.  Gamekeepers 
say  that  the  highest  trial  of  a  retriever's  ability  and  pluck  comes 
at  the  pick-up  the  day  after  a  big  shoot.  Especially  is  this  so 
on  grouse  moors,  where  no  ground  game  or  living  creatures  of 
any  kind  are  to  be  found  around  the  butts,  and  where  probably 
not  a  gun  is  fired  during  the  whole  hunt  for  yesterday's  lost 
dead.  The  author  has  never  seen  this  phase  of  retriever  work  ; 
but  he  believes  there  are  very  few  dogs  that  could  not  get 
enough  of  that  kind  of  thing,  and  that  the  absence  of  sport 
and  the  search  for  cold  meat  might  make  the  best  dogs  inclined 
to  "  look  back "  for  orders.  On  the  other  hand,  grouse 
collecting  after  a  drive  is  just  finished  is  the  easiest  of  all  the 
work  the  retriever  is  called  upon  to  perform,  for  except  where 
there  are  peat  hags  or  open  drains  a  grouse  with  a  broken  wing 
will  not  run  very  far.  In  one  sense  retriever  work  is  more 
difficult  than  it  used  to  be  when  game  was  walked  up,  for  the 
necessity  for  remaining  quite  still  until  a  drive  is  over,  whether 
the  game  be  grouse,  partridges,  or  pheasants,  often  gives  the 
wounded  a  twenty  minutes'  start.  Consequently,  it  is  likely 
enough  to  get  clean  out  of  the  range  of  a  retriever  by  the  time 
he  is  started.  It  is  all  very  well  to  say  that  he  should  get  upon 
the  foot  scent  and  st  'k  to  it ;  so  he  should,  and  probably  would 
12 


178  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

much  oftener  than  he  does,  but  for  the  fact  that  there  is  around 
the  fall  of  the  wounded  in  all  directions  the  scent  of  other 
dead  and  wounded  birds.  What  is  often  asked  of  a  retriever, 
then,  is  to  neglect  the  strongest  and  freshest  scents  and  to  try 
for  the  weakest  and  oldest  In  order  to  get  this  work  well  done, 
a  retriever  should  be  willing  to  range  wide,  outside  the  radius  of 
the  dead  birds,  so  as  to  find  either  the  body  scent  of  the 
crouching  wounded  bird  or  its  foot  scent  after  it  had  got  clear 
of  the  floating  scent  of  the  many  dead  which  fouls  the  ground 
long  after  the  fowls  have  all  been  removed  from  it.  But  the 
misfortune  is  that  a  high  ranging  retriever  is  not  always  willing 
to  hunt  close  for  dead  birds  and  those  that  have  not  moved 
far.  However,  this  can  be  taught ;  whereas  there  are  many  fair 
retrievers  for  close  hunting  that  could  not  be  taught  to  hunt 
wide  for  a  moving  "  runner,"  for  the  reason  that  they  have  not 
the  necessary  pluck. 

A  great  deal  of  difference  of  opinion  exists  as  to  whether  a 
retriever  should  carry  a  high  or  a  low  head.  But  there  is  no 
doubt  that  a  good  dog  must  do  both  as  occasion  requires.  Many 
times  has  the  author  seen  a  high-headed  retriever  find  the  fall 
of  a  wounded  bird  60  yards  away,  go  straight  to  the  place, 
glue  his  nose  to  the  line,  and  never  look  up  until  the  bird 
fluttered  up  in  his  path.  But  even  this  low  nose  on  the  foot 
scent  is  not  invariably  desirable,  and  the  same  retriever  that  at 
one  time  worms  out  a  line  down  wind  will  often  run  like  a  fox- 
hound, head  up  and  stern  down,  when  the  direction  is  up  wind, 
or  even  side  wind.  The  higher  the  dog  carries  his  head  the 
faster  he  will  go,  and  consequently  the  sooner  he  will  come  up 
with  his  game,  so  that  to  insist  on  retrievers  carrying  a  low  nose, 
even  in  roding  game,  is  to  insist  on  mediocrity.  Every 
retriever  should  put  his  nose  down  as  soon  as  he  has  satisfied 
himself  that  he  cannot  do  the  work  with  a  high  head.  Of 
course  a  retriever  cannot  find  even  a  fresh-shot  bird  if  a  man 
is  standing  over  it,  and  as  the  habit  is  for  shooters  and  beaters  to 
go  and  "  help  "  look  for  lost  game,  it  follows  that  retrievers  learn 
to  put  their  heads  down,  for  they  know  that  unless  they  ram  their 
noses   nearly  into   the   feathers  the   scent   cannot  be  detected 


RETRIEVERS  AND  THEIR  BREAKING  179 

under  such  humanising  conditions  of  scent.  It  is  a  good  plan 
to  pick  up  by  hand  all  the  game  that  lies  near  and  within 
sight  of  where  the  shooters  stood  before  sending  the  dogs,  and 
when  the  dead  pick-up  is  collected,  to  send  the  game  off  down 
wind  of  the  place  to  be  hunted,  so  that  the  scent  of  it  does  not 
mix  with  the  similar  scent  of  some  long-gone  runner.  Then  if 
the  ground  to  be  hunted  is  up  wind  of  where  the  dead  birds 
were,  everything  will  be  in  favour  of  a  dog  started  from  that 
spot ;  if,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  to  leeward  of  the  fall  of  a  lot  of 
game,  it  is  well  to  go  still  farther  down  wind  with  the  retriever, 
and  start  him  100  yards  or  more  away  from  the  tainted 
ground.  Then,  after  trying  around  for  a  trace  of  foot  scent, 
it  is  easy  enough  to  work  back  if  no  indications  are  found. 
The  object  is  to  get  the  retriever  as  quickly  as  possible 
on  the  line  of  wounded  game,  without  letting  him  lose  time 
lifting  dead  ones  or  hunting  for  already  "  picked  "  birds. 

In  walking  up  game  one  of  the  most  difficult  things  to 
learn  is  to  take  the  far-off  bird,  and  not  the  easy  one,  first.  By 
taking  the  latter  with  first  barrel  the  former  often  becomes 
impossible,  and  it  is  just  the  same  with  retrievers.  If  you 
send  them  off  amongst  dead  game,  they  must  be  allowed  to 
pick  it  up,  although  you  can  see  it.  A  contrary  practice  is 
very  useful  sometimes,  and  it  is  easy  to  teach  a  retriever  to 
neglect  the  dead  for  the  wounded  always ;  but  this  "  higher 
education "  is  extremely  awkward  in  thick  cover,  like  long 
heather  or  turnips,  where  the  quite  dead  birds  are  most  often 
lost. 

A  case  in  point  occurs.  Mr.  A,  T.  Williams'  Don  of 
Gerwn  won  the  retriever  trials  very  comfortably  in  1904,  when 
the  author  was  one  of  the  three  judges.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  he  is  very  smart  on  a  running  bird  in  covert,  or  out,  and 
he  knows  it,  and  likes  the  game  amazingly.  But  in  1905  he 
carried  his  preferences  too  far ;  for  once,  at  least,  and  probably 
on  several  ocasions,  he  found,  and  made  no  sign  of  it  when 
sent  for  dead  birds,  but  went  on  hunting  for  the  runner  that 
was  not.  He  had  been  scolded  off  dead  birds,  and  thus,  on 
one  occasion,  he  was  seen   by  a  spectator   to   turn   over   the 


i8o  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

dead  wing  of  the  only  bird  down  and  go  on  hunting,  as  if  his 
master  only  wanted  his  services  for  the  lively  runner.  As  the 
judges  did  not  see  this  performance,  Don  had  the  discredit  of 
having  his  eye  wiped  on  very  easy  birds  twice.  Probably  if 
they  had  known  all  about  it,  there  would  have  been  no  other 
course  open  to  them  ;  for,  after  all,  the  "  higher  education  "  must 
stop  short  at  teaching  the  neglect  of  retrieving  to  the 
retriever. 

It  is  a  great  but  not  uncommon  mistake  to  confuse  bustle 
and   excitement  with  courage  and  love   of  hunting.     No  dog 
should    have     less    excitement    or    more     courage    than   the 
retriever.     Excitement  is   so  easily  recognised  that  little  need 
be  said  of  it,  except  that  it  is  probably  a  near  relative  of  nerves, 
and    a    retriever    should    appear   to   have   no   nerves   and   no 
excitement.     He  should  be  able  to  stand  still,  to  lie  still,  or  to 
sit  still,  in  the  presence  of  any  quantity  of  wounded  or  dead 
ground  game  or  winged  birds.     The  standing  still  is  the  most 
difficult  of  the  three.     At  the  same  time,  the  more  interest  a 
retriever  takes  in  all  that  is  going  on  the  better  he  is  sure  to  be, 
provided   he   is   not   excitable.     Probably  no   dog  takes  more 
interest  than  a  pointer,  standing  like  a  statue  and  dropping  as 
the  game  rises.     He  may  be  excited  as  he  does  this,  but  the 
majority  are  not,  and  a  retriever  should  be  no  more  so.     The 
pointer  watches  the  game  go  away,  but  as  he  does  so  he  sinks 
to  the  earth,  and  the  retriever  may  be  just  as  interested  without 
jumping  about  or  jerking  his  head  in  all  directions  in  turn.     A 
good    retriever   appears   to   be   thinking,  and    when    a   dog  is 
noticed  to  take  his  gaze  off  the  bird  he  has  been  watching  at 
every  new  arrival,  or   new  fall,  of  game,   he   usually  has   not 
much  stability.     He  is  sure  to  turn  out  flighty,  and  that  is  a 
very  bad  quality — the  outcome  of  excitement.     The  determina- 
tion to  hunt  can  exist  without  any  excitement,  can  grow  on 
what  it  feeds  on,  and  does  not  require  the  assistance  of  blood 
to  increase  it.     This  is  a  very  important  thing  to  know,  because 
an  old  idea  was  that  setters  and  pointers  must  be  allowed  to 
chase  game  to  give  them  a  love  of  hunting.     Some  of  them 
may  require  it ;  others  will  increase  their  love  of  hunting  every 


[;  "^^-, 
-§ 


MR.    A.     1'.    WILLIAMS'    DON    OF    GKRWN   (LIVKR   COLOURED) 


<**»-' 

P^tV^'^-J 

"^""' •-:;V'-''-^ 

MR.  T, i:\vis  wic.w's  s\\Ki':i'  OK  (;Li:Mi.\i-;ri-.L  (1;l.\(K) 


RETRIEVERS  AND  THEIR  BREAKING  i8i 

time  they  go  out,  although  they  have  never  been  allowed  to 
chase,  and  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  in  the  spring  no  game 
has  ever  been  killed  over  them.  Some  retrievers  have  had 
this  love  of  hunting  also ;  but  a  great  many,  on  the  contrary, 
seem  to  depend  on  the  excitement  they  get  for  the  will  to  hunt. 
The  latter  are  the  most  difficult  to  break,  and  the  least  valuable 
when  they  are  broken. 

The  qualities  that  must  be  hereditary  in  retrievers  are  that 
one  just  described — soft  mouth,  and  to  some  extent  "nose." 
The  last-named  is  not  as  certainly  hereditary  as  the  others, 
although  it  is  quite  as  important.  The  author  is  not  prepared 
to  maintain  that  an  excitable  retriever  having  these  last- 
mentioned  qualities  is  always  a  bad  one,  or  that  excitement 
cannot  be  used  as  a  substitute  for  natural  love  of  hunting  in 
the  breaking  of  a  retriever,  but  this  process  is  intended  to 
restrain  excitement,  so  that  the  simultaneous  encouragement 
of  it  makes  the  task  a  conflict  of  intention. 

It  is  said  that  the  business  of  catching  wounded  game 
makes  a  retriever  more  apt  to  run  in  than  a  pointer  or  setter, 
but  the  author  has  had  several  good  retrieving  setters  that  did 
not  run  in,  so  that  the  difference  in  breaking  is  much  more 
likely  to  arise  from  temperament  than  from  duties. 

It  is  very  easy  to  make  retrievers  steady  to  heel.  For 
this  purpose  some  people  keep  cut-wing  pheasants  for  them 
to  retrieve,  and  Belgian  hare  rabbits  for  them  to  look  at. 
The  lessons  are  useful,  but  whether  use  does  not  breed  con- 
tempt is  doubtful.  The  author  would  expect  a  dog  trained 
to  retrieve  tame  pheasants  to  become  careless,  and  one  that 
constantly  saw  Belgian  hare  rabbits  to  be  well  behaved  until 
temptation  arose.  Retrievers  that  have  sense  often  get  very 
cunning :  one  the  author  had  did  not  start  to  run  in  until  he 
was  five  years  old,  and  then  he  did  it  deliberately,  and  not  from 
excitement.  The  proof  was  that  he  would  not  move  unless 
he  saw  a  hare  was  hit,  then  he  went  instantly,  and  would  take 
his  whipping  as  if,  deserving  it,  he  did  not  mind. 

What  do  dogs  think  of  us  when  we  restrain  them  from  catch- 
ing the  very  things  we  go  out  to  catch  ?     More  proof  was  forth- 


i82  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

coming  that  it  was  determination  and  not  excitement  that  made 
this  old  dog  run  in.     When  a  cord  was  put  on  him,  he  would  not 
move  under  similar  circumstances.     He  was  eventually  cured, 
but  it  was  a  tough  job,  and  was  not  done  by  cord  or  whip-cord. 
Forty   years    ago    the    curly-coated   dogs    were   the    best 
workers,    and    one    could    make   sure   of  getting    good    dogs 
regularly.     For  instance,  about  that  time  the   author   bought 
a   brace   of  curly   puppies   from    Mr.    Gorse,  of  Radcliffe-on- 
Trent,   then   the  most   noted   exhibitor  of  show   dogs.     Both 
took  to  work  naturally  and  quickly,  and   could   in   their  first 
season  be  trusted  to  get  runners  in  turnip-fields  of  lOO  acres 
each.     Ten  years  later,  the  author  bought  one  of  the  late  Mr. 
Shirley's  flat-coated  heavy  sort,   but,  although  no   trouble   to 
break,  it  was  heavy  in  mind   and  body.     Mr.  Shirley  entered 
the  own  brother  of  this  dog  at  the  field  trials  at  Sleaford ;  there 
was    no   other    competitor    for    the    prize.     Had    there    been 
another  entry,  it  is  impossible  that  Mr.  Shirley  could  have  won, 
for  a  more  lumbering  and  clumsy  performance  was  never  seen, 
although   the  task   set  was   only  that   of  picking   up   a   dead 
bird  and  not  a  runner.     But   Mr.    Shirley  improved  the  next 
generation  considerably.     He  had  a  very  handsome  dog  to  which 
the   author  was   anxious   to    raise   some   puppies.     With    this 
object   in  view,  an   exchange  was  made   for  a  defeated   bitch 
called   Jenny,  then  belonging  to  Mr.  Gorse,  before  mentioned. 
He  took  a  second  prize  Birmingham  winner  of  the  author's 
breeding    in    exchange.     But    Mr.    Shirley    objected    to    the 
breeding  programme,  so  that  another  course  had  to  be  adopted, 
and  Jenny  raised  some  first-rate  working  dogs.     Then  she  was 
disposed  of  by  the  author  to  the  late  Mr.  Shirley,  and  by  him 
bred  to  the  dog  which  had  been  denied  to  her  when  the  author's 
property.     Her  name  was  changed  from  "  Jenny  "  to  "  W^isdom," 
and  she  became  the  founder  of  the  Wiseacre  family  of  show 
retrievers.     She  presented  them  with  those  long  heads  physically 
that   some   people   declare   are    far   from    "  long "    figuratively. 
Wisdom,  or  Jenny,  herself  was  certainly  a  fool,  and  the  origin 
of  her   long   and   narrow  refined   head   was   probably  what   is 
known  as  a  "  sport,"  for  it  was   not  to  be  seen  on  any  other 


RETRIEVERS  AND  THEIR  BREAKING  183 

retriever  of  that  time.  However,  she  had  a  good  nose  and  a 
tender  mouth,  and  is  important  because  probably  all  the  show 
flat-coated  dogs  are  descended  from  her. 

All  the  public  retriever  trials  in  the  field  have  not  been 
failures  like  that  at  Sleaford,  previously  mentioned.  But 
they  have  only  become  popular  with  show  men  quite  recently. 
The  latter  have  very  wisely  concluded  that  if  they  could  not 
snuff  out  the  trials  that  so  frequently  exhibited  handsome 
dogs  in  a  poor  light,  the  next  best  thing  to  be  done  was  to 
capture  them.  In  order  to  do  this,  a  very  large  number  of 
entries  have  been  made,  and  as  the  stake  is  necessarily  limited 
(20  was  the  number),  this  had  the  effect  of  keeping  out 
most  outsiders. 

Thus  at  the  1905  trial  there  were  39  nominations,  only 
20  of  which  were  accepted,  and  these  were  made  up  of  1 5  flat- 
coated  dogs,  one  Norfolk  retriever,  two  Labrador  retrievers, 
and  two  brown  or  liver-coloured  dogs,  one  of  which,  at  least, 
was  not  of  the  dog-show  strain  in  most  of  his  removes. 

By  this  plan  the  show  flat-coated  breed  has  come  to  the 
extreme  front  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  field 
trials.  Probably  it  will  be  interesting  briefly  to  enumerate 
the  principal  features  of  retriever  trials.  Nobody  ought  to 
be  able  to  do  it  better  than  the  author,  for  he  is  the  only 
man  who  has  seen  them  all.  The  first  was  a  very  modest 
effort  attached  to  the  1870  autumn  shooting  trials  of  pointers 
and  setters,  held  at  Vaynol  Park,  which  fine  property  the  late 
Mr.  Assheton-Smith  had  just  before  inherited.  The  following 
year,  at  the  same  trials,  there  were  two  stakes  for  these  dogs. 
The  author  hunted  a  puppy  which  was  quite  good  on 
wounded  partridges,  but  the  very  worst  possible  retriever  on  a 
wounded  hare.  The  first  thing  he  was  set  to  do  was  to  get 
a  wounded  "  squarnog,"  as  a  hare  is  called  in  Welsh.  Strange 
to  say,  on  the  fine  rushy,  damp  fields  of  Vaynol,  the  expected 
wild-goose  chase  came  off,  and  the  tiseless  hare  retriever  came 
back  with  the  spoils  of  victory.  A  retriever,  possibly  belonging 
to  Mr.  Lloyd  Price,  was  entered  at  the  same  time  by  the  late 
Mr.  Thomas  Ellis  of  Bala,  for  the  aged    dog  stake,  and  won 


1 84  .         THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

very  easily.  The  "  Devil "  had  been  obviously  named  for  his 
looks.  He  was  a  curly  sandy-brown,  with  whiskers  like  an 
otter  hound.  His  victory  reached  the  ears  of  the  Welsh 
Church,  and  caused  remonstrance  against  taking  in  vain  names 
of  potent  powers.  This  had  so  much  effect  on  the  Welsh 
squire,  that  the  following  year  he  entered  a  son  of  the  Devil 
and  called  it  "  Country  Rector,"  possibly  thereby  avoiding  the 
danger  he  had  been  cautioned  against.  That  year  it  was 
clear  once  more  that  the  show  beauties  were  out-classed, 
and  probably  that  was  the  reason  why,  when  the  Vaynol 
ground  was  no  longer  available,  no  other  trials  except  the 
Sleaford  failures  were  instituted  for  thirty  years,  or  until  those 
of  the  Retriever  Society,  which  are  now  held  annually.  These 
began  about  the  opening  of  the  new  century,  and  appear 
likely  to  see  it  out.  But  the  first  meeting  under  it  was  a 
failure.  The  winning  dog  was  either  very  old  or  very  slow, 
and  it  was  not  until  the  following  year  that  any  smart  work 
was  seen.  This  was  done  by  Mr.  Abbott's  Rust,  whose  name 
explains  her  colour  and  appearance ;  but  she  did  some 
brilliant  work,  especially  when  she  was  set  to  wipe  the  eye  of 
one  which  appeared  to  have  a  good  chance  until  she  had 
failed  at  a  running  pheasant,  one  that  gave  Rust  no  trouble 
whatever  ten  minutes  later,  and  with  so  much  the  worse  chance. 
Rust  on  that  occasion  was  the  only  dog  present  that  either 
by  pedigree  or  reversion  went  back  to  the  old  race  of 
retrievers.  This  was  reminiscent  of  the  "  Devil  "  triumph,  and 
was  far  from  encouraging  to  the  beauty  men.  The  following 
season  Rust  was  again  out,  but  far  too  fat  and  sleek  to  do 
herself  justice,  and  she  was  beaten  by  the  life  of  idleness  she 
had  been  leading  as  a  hearth-dog,  and  also  by  a  very  nice 
black  bitch  with  some  white  upon  it,  belonging  to  the  late  Mr. 
Charles  Eley,  whose  son,  Mr.  C.  C.  Eley,  had  taken  second 
with  a  nice-looking  black  in  Rust's  year.  Three  Messrs.  Eley 
were  in  the  field  for  honours  in  the  following  years,  and  by 
the  assistance  of  Satanella,  a  bitch  without  known  pedigree, 
and  Sandiway  Major  (by  Wimpole  Peter)  they  headed  the 
working    division.     Sandiway    Major   was   a   triumph   for   the 


RETRIEVERS  AND  THEIR  BREAKING  185 

show  pedigree,  as  his  sire  was  a  Champion ;  but  it  was  noticed 
that  Major  was  a  very  distinct  reversion  to  the  old  wavy- 
coated  sort,  for  he  was  quite  as  much  a  curly  as  a  flat  coated 
one.  He  had  been  purchased  out  of  one  of  Mr.  George 
Davies'  annual  retriever  sales  at  Aldridge's,  and  his  work  was 
good  although  perhaps  not  brilliant.  This  was  not  all  that 
the  show  men  could  desire,  and  the  following  year  another 
sandy  liver-coloured  dog,  named  Mr.  A.  T.  Williams'  Don  o 
Gerwn,  easily  won  first.  This  dog  was  a  son  of  that  Rust 
spoken  of  before,  and  his  sire  was  a  cream-coloured  dog  of 
Lord  Tweedmouth's  strain — even  more  of  a  facer  for  the 
believers  in  exhibition  dogs.  But  on  this  occasion  another 
son  of  Wimpole  Peter  was  third,  and  in  1905  turned  the  tables 
on  Don  of  Gerwn.  This  was  a  handsome  but  somewhat  slow 
dog  belonging  to  Colonel  Cotes  of  Pitchford.  Don  put  himself 
out  of  court  by  not  condescending  to  notice  dead  game,  and 
hunting  on  the  principle  of  "  nothing  but  runners  attended  to." 
The  Pitchford  dog  is  descended  from  a  very  old  working 
strain,  which  first  figured  in  public  when  one  of  them  appeared 
in  the  pages  of  the  Sporting  Magazine  about  the  year  Queen 
Victoria  came  to  the  throne.  But,  as  a  son  of  Wimpole  Peter 
won  the  stake,  and  three  sons  of  Horton  Rector  were  high  up 
in  it,  the  exhibition  division  has  every  right  to  be  pleased 
with  its  first  unalloyed  triumph.  Mr.  Allan  Shuter,  as  the 
owner  of  the  living  Rector,  has  even  more  reason  to  be  pleased 
than  Mr,  Radcliffe  Cooke,  as  sometime  owner  of  the  now 
dead  Peter.  But  Mr.  Shuter's  own  entry  was  not  at  all  what 
was  wanted,  for  he  was  too  big,  too  lumbering  in  body,  and 
not  particularly  nimble  in  mind.  Mr.  Remnant  has  come  near 
winning  first  on  various  occasions,  and  may  be  looked  upon 
as  a  sportsman  likely  to  improve  the  breed,  by  the  neglect  of 
beauty  spots  and  selection  for  the  fittest,  as  also  very  decidedly 
may  be  Mr.  C.  C.  Eley,  Major  Eley  his  brother,  and  their 
cousin,  Captain  Eley,  and  Mr.  G.  R.  Davies.  Captain  Harding, 
too,  in  Salop,  has  the  right  sort,  and  his  Almington  Merlin  has 
had  bad  luck,  or  another  Wimpole  Peter  would  have  come  to 
the  front. 


1 86  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

That  these  retriever  trials  are  doing  good,  in  starting 
breeders  who  are  trying  to  correct  the  working  faults  of  the 
various  breeds,  is  obvious,  and  with  the  public  spirit  exhibited 
by  the  late  Mr.  Assheton-Smith  future  sportsmen  will  assuredly 
associate  the  names  of  Mr.  B.  J.  Warwick,  Mr.  C.  C.  Eley,  and 
Mr.  William  Arkwright,  not  only  as  founders  of  the  Retriever 
Society,  but  also  as  finders  of  the  game  on  which  the  dogs 
have  been  tried. 

Everybody  who  is  acquainted  with  the  average  dogs  seen  at 
shooting  parties,  and  has  the  advantage  of  ever  having  seen  a 
really  good  one,  will  know  how  very  necessary  was  some  such 
move  as  these  field  trials.  It  often  has  been  said  that  all  the 
retrievers  could  do  was  to  pick  up  game  the  men  could  see.  It 
has  become  fashionable  to  demand  a  no-slip  retriever — that  is, 
one  that  will  not  run  in  to  retrieve  until  ordered  to  do  so. 
Perhaps  it  has  been  the  readiness  with  which  such  dogs  have 
sold  that  has  caused  breakers  to  prefer  the  slugs,  as  being  the 
most  easily  controlled,  and  the  least  likely  to  be  returned  by 
purchasers  as  wild.  Whatever  has  done  it,  the  real  game-loving 
instinct  is  much  weakened  since  the  time  when  a  retriever  was  a 
working  dog  or  nothing ;  but  it  appears  to  survive  in  a  modified 
degree,  which  may  assuredly  be  strengthened  by  selection. 

It  has  been  previously  stated  that  the  waiting  until  drives  are 
over  makes  the  retrievers  work  harder  than  of  old,  but  this  does  not 
apply  to  the  hardest  of  all  work — that  is,  covert  shooting ;  for  this 
has  been  largely  "  driving  "  ever  since  retrievers  were  introduced, 
if  it  can  be  said  that  they  ever  were  introduced.  This  point  is 
rather  doubtful,  because  the  curly  retriever  is  nothing  more 
than  an  altered  edition  of  the  old  English  water-dog,  which 
variety  used  to  do  wildfowler's  duty,  with  a  white  leg  or  two,  a 
white  chest  and  a  short  tail,  which  had  probably  been  n.t  like 
those  of  other  spaniels.  The  first  retriever  the  author  shot  over 
was  entirely  of  this  description,  stern  and  all,  except  that  she 
was  all  black,  or  so  nearly  whole-coloured  that  no  white  upon 
her  can  be  remembered.  This  was  about  i860,  and  a  son  of 
this  "  missing  link  "  was  particularly  smart,  and  had  so  good  a 
mouth,  that  on  one  occasion,  when  he  annexed  a  hen  sitting 


RETRIEVERS  AND  THEIR  BREAKING  187 

on  her  nest,  and  carried  her  half  a  mile,  she  was  returned  to 
her  treasures  and  sat  upon  them,  none  the  worse  for  her 
involuntary  excursion  into  the  next  parish.  That  calls  to  mind 
the  frequently  made  statement  that  it  is  wrong  to  give  dogs 
hard  things  to  retrieve.  The  idea  is  that  it  teaches  them  to  bite 
and  to  be  hard-mouthed.  That  is  an  entire  mistake,  and  this 
dog,  like  many  another,  was  often  made  to  retrieve  stones,  and 
to  prove  whether  he  bit  them  he  was  occasionally  sent  back  for 
hen's  eggs,  but  never  broke  one. 

It  is  said,  too,  that  the  old  dogs  were  lumbering,  and  so  no 
doubt  the  Newfoundland  type  of  wavy-coated  dogs  were,  but 
this  hen-and-egg  carrier,  like  his  mother,  was  active  enough. 
He  was  not  steady  to  heel,  but  was  as  sharp  as  a  lurcher,  and  in 
cover  it  was  difficult  in  his  presence  to  miss  a  rabbit.  No 
wounded  one  would  get  to  its  hole,  and  a  good  many  that  were 
not  wounded  were  nevertheless  retrieved  and  duly  credited  to 
the  shooter.  Now  it  is  considered  a  strain  on  the  breaking  and 
a  temptation  to  the  mouth  of  a  retriever  to  trust  him  with 
ground  game  in  his  first  season.  Although  this  particular  dog 
was  never  broken  to  stop  at  heel,  such  rules,  if  they  existed 
then,  were  more  honoured  by  the  breach  than  the  keeping, 
and  the  dogs  were  mostly  as  steady  and  as  soft-mouthed  as 
any  now. 

The  author  has  used  a  retriever  often  with  a  team  of  wild 
spaniels,  and  constantly  with  setters  and  pointers,  without  any 
running  in  of  broken  dogs,  except  in  the  cases  already 
mentioned,  and  these  are  the  highest  trials  of  the  steadiness  of 
retrievers.  In  hunting  a  brace  of  young  setters  there  is 
obviously  no  time  to  argue  with  a  retriever,  not  even  with  a 
shooting-boot,  and  the  author  has  had  no  trouble,  as  a  rule,  to 
make  his  retrievers  conspicuous  only  by  their  invisibility  behind, 
until  they  were  called  upon  for  action. 

One  great  dog  man  makes  his  retrievers  "  back "  when  his 
dogs  point.  But  pointing  and  setting  dogs  take  no  notice,  and 
do  not  break  in,  when  they  are  in  the  habit  of  looking  upon  the 
retriever  as  a  part  of  the  gun.  It  may  be,  however,  that  when 
black  pointers  are  used  a  backer  might  mistake  a  retriever  for 


1 88  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

a  drawing  pointer,  and  be  thus  led  into  error ;  and  if  so,  this  is  a 
serious  objection  to  black  and  black-and-tan  index  dogs. 

The  worst  cross  the  author  ever  made  was  with  Zelstone. 
Although  not  a  large  dog,  he  was  said  to  be  a  pure  bred  New- 
foundland. He  was  a  flat-coated  retriever  Champion,  and  may 
have  been  himself  a  good  worker  ;  but  he  ruined  the  working 
qualities  of  the  descendants  of  Jenny  above  mentioned,  and 
brought  the  author's  strain  of  them  to  an  end.  Consequently,  it 
is  suggested  that  the  Newfoundland  is  the  type  to  breed  out  of  the 
flat  coats. 

Breaking  the  Retriever 

It  is  said  that  the  way  to  have  a  perfect  dog  is  to  let  it  live 
with  you,  but  it  seems  to  be  an  excellent  way  to  teach  the  dog 
to  obey  only  when  he  likes,  for  if  his  master  insists  on  obedience 
other  people  who  will  take  an  interest  in  a  nice  dog,  will  pet, 
spoil,  order,  and  coax  by  turns.     The  collie  is  put  forward  as 
the  most  wonderful  exhibition  of  dog  breaking,  but  the  author 
has  rarely  seen  a  collie  take  the  order  to  come  to  heel,  or  to  go 
home,  when  a  stranger  approaches  the  shepherd's  house.     The 
good  sheep-dog  has  a  duty  to  perform  that  he  likes,  and  he  does 
it  well,  but  ask  him  to  do  anything  besides,  and  he  objects,  and 
gets  his  way.     The  spaniel's  business  is  the  most  taxing  of  all, 
and  requires  the  best  breaking,  except  when  the  retriever   is 
broken  to  do  spaniel's  duty  as  well  as  his  own,  as  he  can.     That 
is  to  say,  he  can  find  live  rabbits  in  their  seats  and  turn  them 
out  to  the  gun,  and  stand  still  as  they  go.     This  is  far  more  of  a 
tax  on  any  dog  than  steadiness  in  pointing,  when  the  breaker 
turns  out  the  pointed  game.     The  turning  out  often  amounts  to 
an  attempt  to  catch  a  rabbit  in  its  seat ;  and  the  instantaneous 
stop  when  the  creature  moves  is,  as  nearly  as  may  be,  the  exer- 
cise of  the  savage  impulse  with  the  civilised  control  in  mid  career. 
Perfect  hand  breaking  of  the  retriever  includes  fetching  and 
finding  inanimate  objects,  dropping  to  order,  remaining  down 
for  any  length  of  time,  coming  to  order,  hunting  in  any  direction 
indicated  by  the  breaker,  not  only  to  right  and  left  as  desired, 
but  far  or  near  as  bidden.    All  these  teachings  will  come  naturally 


RETRIEVERS  AND  THEIR  BREAKING  189 

to  a  man  fond  of  dogs,  just  as  a  nurse  fond  of  children  will 
make  them  do  anything  without  any  book  of  rules.  Conse- 
quently, the  only  point  necessary  to  insist  upon  is  the  utmost 
quickness  of  obedience  in  all  things.  This  is  got  by  surprise 
orders  at  moments  and  in  situations  when  the  dog  cannot  help 
but  obey,  and  by  an  economy  of  orders,  so  that  the  pupil  never 
gets  tired.  The  quickness  in  returning  with  a  retrieved  object 
is  usually  learnt  by  means  of  the  breaker  starting  to  run  away 
as  soon  as  the  object  is  lifted.  By  means  of  this  trick,  and 
never  boring  the  pupil  with  too  much  work  in  his  play-time,  as 
going  out  with  his  breaker  should  be  to  him,  any  dog  can  be 
taught  to  return  on  the  instant ;  and  a  good  education  in  this 
point  has  much  influence  on  a  retriever's  softness  of  mouth.  By 
this  coaching  he  will  be  brought  to  do  things  instinctively,  and 
when  he  comes  to  game  he  will  then  have  no  time  to  stop  to 
select  the  best  grasp,  but  he  will  come  at  full  gallop,  whatever 
his  first  hold  of  his  game  may  be,  and  when  this  is  the  case  he 
never  will  grow  hard-mouthed.  Consequently,  your  hand 
breaking  goes  half-way  to  make  the  mouth. 

Entering  on  Game 

It  is  said  to  be  a  good  way  to  show  a  retriever  heaps  of  game 
running  about  while  he  is  at  heel.  No  doubt  this  is  true,  but 
not  before  he  has  learnt  to  retrieve  running  game.  To  make 
a  retriever  steady  before  he  wants  to  be  wild  is  easy  enough ; 
but  it  is  not  teaching  self-control,  and  is  educating  the  dog  to 
ignore  game  just  as  he  should  sheep.  Consequently,  it  is  best, 
as  soon  as  the  young  dog  is  perfectly  hand  broken,  at  six  or 
eight  months  old,  to  give  him  some  line  hunting  after  living 
game.  This  will  increase  his  fondness  of  hunting,  and  give 
him  an  inclination  to  go  for  all  the  game  he  sees,  so  that  he 
will  gain  self-control  with  every  head  of  game  he  does  not  chase. 

The  author  used  to  believe  that  a  drag  was  good  exercise 
in  line  hunting :  it  may  serve  to  start  a  puppy,  but  he  will  hunt 
the  man  and  not  the  dead  game.  There  are  objections  to  most 
methods  of  teaching  rode  hunting,  but  the  author's  plan  serves 


I90  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

at  least  three  useful  purposes.  First  of  all,  and  most  important 
is  the  use  of  a  bird  that  is  not  easily  bitten  or  hurt,  so  that 
no  damage  is  done  to  the  dog's  mouth,  or  to  the  tame  and 
wing-cut  wild  duck,  for  this  is  the  bird  used.  The  duck  is 
taken  away  from  its  pond,  and  turned  down  in  a  meadow,  when 
it  will  head  towards  its  home,  creeping  as  much  out  of  sight 
as  possible.  In  the  grass  it  will  prove  very  easy  to  rode  up 
to,  and  that  is  wanted  for  a  young  dog.  Later  it  can  be  made 
quite  difficult  enough  over  fallow,  or  anywhere,  by  giving  lots 
of  law.  Then  in  a  shallow  pond  the  duck  is  an  education  to 
the  water-dog.  Almost  every  dog  will  take  water  provided  he 
can  touch  bottom  and  there  be  a  match  for  a  duck,  but  many 
dogs  object  to  swimming.  Nevertheless,  if  there  is  only  one 
small  spot  in  the  pond  which  the  retriever  cannot  wade,  the 
duck  will  find  this  out  very  quickly,  and  will,  by  degrees,  tempt 
in  the  dog  out  of  his  depth.  He  will  soon  learn  to  dive  after 
the  duck,  too,  and  in  fact  become  a  first-rate  water-dog  without 
having  a  shot  fired  over  him. 

The  duck  let  off  in  a  turnip-field  will  be  a  great  lesson,  for 
at  first  turnip  leaves  and  the  innumerable  small  birds  and  other 
creatures  in  turnips,  especially  rabbits  and  thrushes  before  the 
shooting  season,  bother  a  youngster  even  more  than  the  absence 
of  much  scent  of  the  game  to  be  retrieved. 

After  this  course  the  puppy  will  be  quite  ready  to  take  the 
field,  and  will  probably  get  the  first  running  partridge  or 
grouse  he  is  sent  after,  and  do  it  as  quickly  and  well  as  an 
old  dog. 

The  author  never  made  his  retrievers  drop  to  shot,  but  no 
doubt  it  steadies  the  nervous  and  keeps  down  excitement  to  do 
it.  If  it  is  approved,  the  hand-breaking  time  is  best  for  its 
teaching,  and  it  should  become  habit,  as  if  instinctive.  Then, 
in  the  field,  it  can  gradually  be  forgotten  ;  but  long  after  a  dog 
ceases  to  drop  to  shot  he  will  retain  an  impulse  to  do  so,  and 
as  this  will  be  an  exactly  contrary  impulse  to  that  of  running 
in,  it  will  save  many  a  whipping.  However,  a  dog  is  not 
broken  if  he  is  only  safe  when  lying  down  ;  for  it  is  really 
putting  him  out  of  temptation. 


w^ 


THE  LABRADOR  RETRIEVER 

RECENTLY  there  has  been  a  great  revival  in  numbers 
of  the  close  and  thick  coated,  featherless  dogs  called 
Labrador  retrievers.  Their  ancestors,  or  some  of  them,  were,  as 
the  name  implies,  originally  imported  from  Labrador.  They 
were  not  Newfoundlands  when  first  brought  over  any  more 
than  they  are  now.  But  it  is  rather  difficult  to  say  which 
sportsmen  had  one  sort  and  which  the  other  when  both  first 
began  to  be  used  for  sporting  purposes,  or  to  be  crossed  with 
setters  and  water  spaniels,  to  make  the  ancestors  of  our 
present  races  of  retrievers.  The  Labrador,  as  we  know  him 
now,  probably  had  no  setter  or  spaniel  for  ancestor,  and  there 
is  every  reason  to  believe  that  the  Lord  Malmesbury  of  the 
Diary,  and  later  the  Duke  of  Buccleuch  and  Sir  R.  Graham's 
family,  maintained  the  breed  in  its  original  form.  But  probably 
in-breeding  told  the  usual  story :  a  cross  had  to  be  resorted  to, 
because  the  dogs  were  getting  soft,  and  one  cross  was  introduced 
at  Netherby,  and  of  all  strains  to  select  for  a  cross  one  would 
think  that  chosen  the  worst.  It  was  a  keeper's  night-dog  that 
was  chosen. 

It  has  been  said  that  Mr.  Shirley's  original  strain  and  also 
Zelstone  of  Mr.  Farquharson's  strain  were  descended  from 
Labradors.  This  is  probably  not  quite  correct.  Their  coats 
did  not  indicate  this  blood,  but  that  of  the  Newfoundland. 

The  latter's  was  always  a  long,  loose,  wavy  coat  with  more 
or  less  tendency  to  feather ;  the  Labrador  had  no  more  feather 
than  a  pointer,  but  a  thiclc  close  coat  with  little  or  no  wave. 
There  is  no  doubt  the  purest  blood  has  come  from  the  Duke 
of  Buccleuch's  kennel  of  late  years,  but  the  author  would  not 

191 


192  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

like  to  afifirm  that  crossings  between  that  and  the  Netherby 
kennel  did  not  introduce  the  night-dog  cross  into  the  whole 
of  the  race.  The  short  round  heads  and  wide  jaw-bones  in 
these  dogs  seem  to  bear  physical  witness  to  ancestry  competent 
to  take  care  of  itself.  This  statement  of  a  fact  is  not  intended 
to  carry  a  slur  with  it,  for  it  may  be  said  that  the  big  shooter 
and  enthusiastic  dog  man  who  found  out  these  particulars,  and 
gave  me  the  modern  history  of  the  breed,  has  himself  used  the 
Labrador  recently  as  a  revival  to  his  flat-coated  strain  of 
retrievers. 

Judged  from  the  point  of  view  of  an  admirer  of  a  good  flat- 
coated  retriever,  the  present  race  of  Labrador  dogs  appear 
common.  But  it  would  be  altogether  wrong  to  say  definitely 
that  they  are  so.  Make  and  shape  is  very  much  a  question  of 
fashion  and  taste,  and  when  a  certain  section  of  the  population 
can  admire  the  bulldog  it  is  not  within  the  province  of 
anybody  to  lay  down  the  law  as  to  what  is  canine  beauty. 
At  any  rate,  they  have  one  great  point  seldom  observed  in  the 
flat-coated  dogs.  Their  loins  are  usually  strong  enough  to 
enable  them  to  be  active.  A  dog  with  a  loin  too  small  for  his 
weight  may  be  fast,  but  he  never  can  be  active,  and  as  one 
might  expect  from  this  formation  the  Labradors  are  remarkably 
quick  in  their  movements. 

Mr.  Holland  Hibbert  has  a  big  kennel  of  these  dogs,  and 
has  exhibited  their  work  at  the  retriever  trials  two  seasons. 
His  Munden  Single  was  given  first  beauty  prize  at  the  1905 
trials,  and  was  placed  for  looks  over  the  heads  of  some  very 
good  specimens  of  the  flat-coated  sort.  Still,  it  is  not  supposed 
that  breeders  of  the  flat-coated  sort  are  likely  to  try  to  breed 
their  dogs  to  the  model  then  set  up ;  and  the  author  has  always 
regretted  the  giving  of  beauty  prizes  at  field  trials.  We  go 
to  these  meetings  to  learn  from  Nature  what  form  she  chooses 
shall  embrace  and  contain  her  best  internal  handiwork.  Having 
found  that  out  with  much  expenditure  of  time  and  trouble,  we 
must  needs  read  Nature  a  lecture  before  we  separate,  and 
instruct  her  what  form  she  ought  to  have  chosen  for  her  best. 
We  do  not  hold  a  mirror,  but  a  model,  up  to  Nature,  and  seem 


THK    HOX.    A. 


HOLLAND    HH'.HKRT- 
-MUXDEX    SIXGLK 


LALRAbOR 


THK    HOX,   A.    HOLLAND   nD;l;i:K|   >   MUXDLX   SCAKR 


THE  LABRADOR  RETRIEVER  193 

surprised  she  does  not  adopt  the  work  of  our  creations  as  her 
best.  This  is  surely  all  wrong,  for  it  was  obviously  the 
selection  of  the  best  workers  for  hundreds  of  generations 
that  evolved  the  forms  that  we  call  setters,  pointers,  and 
spaniels,  and  made  them  different  from  any  other  dogs,  but  did 
not  make  them  like  show  dogs  of  the  present  time.  If  the 
latter  had  been  the  most  fit  form  for  the  work  to  be  done, 
it  would  assuredly  have  been  evolved  by  the  selection  of  the 
best  workers. 

On  these  grounds,  it  seems  to  be  unwise  to  place  on  a 
pedestal  for  imitation  and  admiration  the  Labrador  that  was 
beaten. 

If  Darwinism  has  a  spark  of  truth  in  it,  selection  of  the 
fittest  for  the  acts  of  life  has  evolved  every  form  in  the  world 
except  just  the  trivialities,  the  abnormalities,  and  distortions 
that  man  has  bred  as  a  fancy,  not  to  improve,  but  only  to 
alter.  Fancy  poultry  has  been  one  of  the  chief  fields  for 
fancy  operations  in  breeding,  but,  amongst  all  the  new  forms 
and  characters  produced,  there  is  only  one  that  would  survive 
a  state  of  nature  for  a  couple  of  generations.  That  one  is 
the  old  English  game  fowl,  which  was  evolved,  not  by  fancy 
selection,  but  by  fighting — that  is,  by  the  most  severe  and 
discriminating  form  of  selection  and  survival  of  the  fittest. 

Just  in  the  same  way  will  the  forms  of  gun-dogs  take  care 
of  themselves,  provided  selection  of  the  fittest  for  work  is 
severe  enough.  The  pointer  and  setter  trials  have  neglected 
stamina.  If  they  had  not  done  so,  our  working  setters  would 
have  had  backs  like  iron  bars,  as  theirs  have  in  America, 
where  stamina  has  been  the  first  consideration  at  field 
trials. 

When  Mr.  Holland  Hibbert  ran  Munden  Single,  the 
Labrador,  in  the  1904  retriever  trials,  there  is  not  much 
doubt  she  would  have  been  high  up  in  the  prize  list  had  it 
not  been  that  the  last  runner  she  got  was  brought  back  dead. 
It  was  a  wing-tipped  cock  pheasant  that  Single  roded  out 
and  then  chased.  But  the  cock  could  almost  beat  the  doe 
by  the  help  of  its  wings,  and  no  doubt  the  Labrador  was 
13 


194  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

pretty  much  blown  when  she  got  hold.  Then  she  had  to  cross 
a  brook  to  get  back,  and  it  is  likely  enough  that  a  stumble, 
or  perhaps  jumping  against  the  bank,  led  to  the  pinching  of 
the  bird.  However,  excuses  are  not  admitted  in  public  com- 
petitions, and  indeed  none  was  made.  In  1905,  Single  appeared 
to  be  quite  tender  in  the  mouth,  and  although  she  is  admirably 
broken,  and  has  no  excitement  or  nervousness,  but  lots  of  love 
of  the  game,  she  was  not  as  fortunate  in  her  opportunities  as 
had  been  the  case  the  year  before,  and  got  no  prize  for  work 
although  she  has  lots  of  merit.  Another  Labrador  at  this 
meeting  got  a  certificate  of  merit,  so  that,  as  only  three  entries 
have  been  made  all  told  at  retriever  trials,  the  breed  has 
taken  a  much  better  position  with  spectators  than  is  indicated 
by  its  want  of  success  in  gaining  stake  money. 

The  private  character  of  the  breed  for  work  is  very  good 
indeed,  although  some  of  them  are  reported  to  turn  out  rather 
hard  in  the  mouth.  But  then  the  same  thing  can  be  said  for 
every  breed  of  retrievers.  The  author  remembers  Labrador 
retrievers  forty  years  ago.  The  pair  he  first  knew  were  kept 
as  pets  by  a  rural  parson  who  did  not  shoot.  It  was  commonly 
reported  that  either  of  these  dogs  would  dive  to  the  bottom  of 
a  well  and  fetch  up  a  fourpenny-piece ;  but  this  was  hearsay 
evidence,  and  was  never  seen  by  the  present  witness.  How- 
ever, these  dogs  had  just  the  coat  of  the  present  Labradors, 
and  distinctly  not  that  of  the  Newfoundland.  The  only  dog 
of  the  sort  that  the  author  ever  had  was  death  on  cats,  but 
this  accomplishment  did  not  make  him  hard-mouthed  with 
game,  as  it  probably  would  nine  retrievers  out  of  ten. 

[Since  the  above  was  written,  the  1906  retriever  trials  have 
passed,  but  as  the  winners  all  failed  with  runners  the  author  finds 
nothing  to  add  to  his  general  survey.] 


SPANIELS 

THE  chief  of  the  spaniels  are  the  setters,  but  as  they  no 
longer  claim  connection  at  one  end  of  the  group,  and  as 
the  King  Charles  and  Blenheim  spaniels  are  no  longer  granted 
the  status  of  gun-dogs  at  the  other  extremity  of  it,  the  number 
of  breeds  is  limited  in  fact,  but  unduly  enlarged  by  Stud 
Book  classification. 

The  only  sporting  breeds  in  reality,  although  there  are 
more  nominally,  are  the  Irish  water  spaniel,  used  as  a 
retriever,  the  English  water  spaniel,  or  half-breds  of  that 
almost  extinct  race,  of  which  the  curly  retriever  is  a  survival, 
but  with  a  cross ;  the  clumber,  the  English  springer,  the  Welsh 
springer,  and  the  cocker.  Field  and  Sussex  spaniels  seem  to 
have  gone  off  in  work,  although  they  are  said  to  have  come 
on  in  appearance.  There  was  an  outcry  that  the  show  field 
spaniels  were  bred  out  of  true  proportion,  and  there  were 
reports  of  the  same  dogs  being  observed  in  two  different 
parishes  at  the  same  time.  The  drain-pipe  order  of  body  is 
not  quite  as  exaggerated  as  it  was  before  the  reformation  that 
occurred  about  1898,  but  the  black  field  spaniels  and  the 
Sussex  dogs  of  the  shows  even  now  tend  to  a  Dachshund 
formation.  Still,  the  former  are  as  handsome  as  dogs  can  be, 
and  are  in  every  sense  spaniels  to  look  at,  although  mostly 
too  long  and  heavy  for  work,  and  suggesting  hound  cross  by 
the  high  angle  at  which  they  carry  their  sterns.  The  truest 
bred  spaniels  when  at  work  carry  the  stern  at  an  angle  of 
about  45  degrees  with  the  earth,  pointing  downwards,  and  not 
much  higher  in  kennel ;  but  the  majority  of  show  spaniels  carry 
the   stern   above   the    level    of   the    back,   and    consequently 

195 


196  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

suggest  hound  blood.  Besides  this  fault,  they  have  others 
from  the  shooter's  point  of  view.  Their  ears  are  too  long, 
and  they  could  not  work  in  the  feather  they  constantly  carry. 
It  is  strange  that  the  form  of  these  spaniels  should  have  been 
so  grotesquely  altered  by  selection  for  exhibition,  and  yet  the 
old  formations  of  clumbers,  springers,  and  cockers  have  re- 
mained very  much  what  they  always  have  been.  This  is  the 
more  surprising,  having  regard  to  the  fact  that  Sussex,  black 
field,  and  cocker  spaniels  are  now  much  of  the  same  blood. 
The  real  cockers,  which  were  at  one  time  called  King  Charles 
spaniels,  have  become  lap-dogs,  and  the  smaller  specimens  of 
the  other  races  have  taken  their  places.  And  yet  some  cockers 
are  distinctly  the  right  shape  and  not  too  long,  whereas  the 
other  exhibition  races,  named  above  as  too  long,  are  less  work- 
men than  the  cockers  although  so  much  bigger. 

The  black  field  spaniels  appeal  to  me  as  dogs.  The 
refinement  of  their  heads  and  the  beauty  of  their  coats  go 
nearer  to  a  success  by  man  in  producing  a  working  race  by 
mental  design  and  physical  measurement  than  specimens  of 
any  other  show  dogs,  whereas  the  short  heads  of  the  modern 
Sussex  spaniel  look  to  contain  no  sense,  and  the  work  seen  at 
field  trials  must  have  been  very  disappointing  to  the  owners 
of  both  kinds.  It  has  been  a  puzzle  to  the  author  how  men 
who  use  the  gun  at  all  can  be  satisfied  with  such  work. 
However,  people  will  often  sacrifice  sport  for  a  hobby. 

At  a  period  when  science  assents  to  the  possibility,  although 
not  the  probability,  of  raising  up  a  pure  breed  in  spite  of  the 
introduction  of  a  cross  of  blood,  and  when  the  Irish  wolf- 
hound has  been  created  out  of  crosses  with  the  German  boar- 
hound  and  the  Scotch  deer-hound,  it  is  not  wonderful  that  a 
faint  trace  of  Sussex  spaniel  blood  in  a  pedigree  is  considered 
enough  to  warrant  inclusion  under  that  heading  in  the  Stud 
Book.  But  really  it  is  not  known  what  the  original  Sussex 
spaniels  were  like.  It  docs  not  follow  that  because  all  that 
is  known  is  gathered  from  Rosehill,  that  the  dogs  there  were 
of  the  old  Sussex  strain,  or  that  the  information  given  about 
them  was  reliable. 


SPANIELS  197 

It  is  not  of  much  importance  to  sportsmen  in  any  case, 
except  that  it  has  a  bearing  on  the  whole  ancestry  of  the 
spaniel.  So  far  as  the  author  knows,  whole-coloured  liver, 
according  to  the  records,  is  not  a  spaniel  colour  at  all.  On 
the  other  hand,  whole  colours  were  very  much  appreciated  as 
long  ago  as  1776,  but  we  do  not  hear  of  any  except  black- 
and-tan  and  red  dogs — that  is,  of  the  colour  of  a  "bright 
chestnut  horse."  This  colour  is  still  to  be  seen  in  America, 
where  it  is  the  most  common  in  work,  but  the  author  has  only 
heard  of  it,  and  never  seen  it  in  England. 

It  is  only  natural  to  suppose  that  if  spaniels  and  setters 
were  originally  the  same  dog  they  were  also  of  the  same  colour, 
and  we  hear  of  no  ancient  whole  liver-coloured  race  of  either 
sort.  There  is  little  doubt  that  the  latter  is  a  modern  creation, 
and  the  colour  is  easily  produced.  If  a  liver-and-white  dog  of 
any  breed  is  crossed  with  a  whole-coloured  one  of  any  sort  or 
colour,  some  of  the  produce  will  generally  come  whole  liver- 
coloured.  Therefore,  may  we  not  assume  that  the  first  liver- 
coloured  setters  and  spaniels  were  produced  by  crossing  the 
black-and-tans  or  the  reds  of  either  breed  with  the  liver-and- 
white  water  spaniels?  The  author  has  previously  stated  his 
belief  that  colour  is  greatly  indicative  of  blood.  A  few  years 
ago  there  was  a  race  of  liver-and-white  setters  in  the  North  of 
England,  all  of  which  had  a  top-knot  formed  of  hair  longer  than 
the  rest,  and  in  one  specimen  the  author  noticed  a  peculiarity 
distinct  from  anything  noticed  in  other  breeds.  It  was  a  ticked 
liver-and-white  in  colour,  and  wherever  the  hair  was  of  that 
shade  it  was  also  distinctly  longer  than  the  v.-hite  in  which  it 
was  set,  so  that  the  appearance  was  that  of  a  lot  of  little  tassels. 
Spaniels  that  are  liver-and-white  colour  will  generally  be 
found  to  carry  more  feather  on  their  ears  than  any  others  in  the 
same  litters,  and  many  of  them  have  curly  feather  there,  when 
their  differently  marked  brothers  and  sisters  have  straight  hair 
to  the  ear  tips.  If  it  is  true,  therefore,  that  colour  and  hair  is 
indicative  of  blood,  we  have  to  believe  in  either  the  pointer  or 
the  water  spaniel  cross  wherever  liver  colour  is  found  in  setters 
or  spaniels,  although   the   cross  may  be  several  centuries  old. 


198  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

Perhaps  the  best  working  breed  of  spaniels  now  is  that  liver- 
and-white  race  that  has  been  for  lOO  years  in  the  family  of  the 
late  Sir  Thomas  Boughey,  once  Master  of  the  Albrighton 
hounds.  But  more  evidence  is  to  be  found  that  the  Sussex 
spaniels  were  not  originally  liver-coloured.  This  is  the  fact 
that  to  the  present  time  those  with  any  Rosehill  blood  occasion- 
ally produce  what  is  called  a  sandy  puppy,  which  is  practically 
the  colour  original  to  the  Irish  setter,  the  spaniel  as  described 
by  the  Suffolk  Sportsman  in  1776,  and  the  spaniel  as  now 
found  in  America. 

From  the  shooter's  standpoint  the  source  of  origin  does  not 
matter  much.  But  what  matters  is  how  the  various  present- 
day  races  or  crosses  can  work. 

Since  the  establishment  of  field  trials  for  spaniels,  every 
sort  has  been  seen  in  public  work,  and  their  positions  have  been 
as  clearly  defined  as  any  sportsman  wanting  information  could 
desire.  At  first  a  clumber  called  Beechgrove  Bee  distanced  all 
competitors.  She  was  light-made  for  her  race,  and  had  a  narrow 
head  and  rather  pointed  nose. 

Next  to  her  to  assume  command  was  Mr.  Gardner's  Tring, 
a  liver-and-white  springer ;  and  about  the  same  time  a  curly  dog 
called  Lucky  Shot  did  very  well,  but  was  rather  short  of  nose. 
He  has  since  been  called  an  English  water  spaniel,  but  it  is 
doubtful  whether  he  was  less  of  a  springer,  or  Norfolk  spaniel, 
than  Tring,  except  by  reversion  a  little  more  to  the  curly 
ancestors  of  both.  But  all  these  dogs  were  thrown  into  the 
shade  by  Mr.  Eversfield's  black  dog  with  a  white  chest,  named 
Nimrod,  which  carried  all  before  him  at  the  1904  trials,  and 
would  probably  have  done  the  same  again  in  1905  had  it  not 
been  for  the  presence  of  a  liver-and-white  dog  of  Sir  Thomas 
Boughey's  breeding,  also  belonging  to  Mr.  Eversfield.  The 
spaniels  above  named  have  stood  out  from  all  competitors  at 
the  time  of  their  prime,  and  none  others  have  done  so.  Their 
type  of  formation  has  all  been  the  same  except  in  the 
case  of  the  clumber.  That  is,  they  have  been  neither  long  nor 
low,  but  short-backed  and  active,  with  legs  at  least  as  long  as 
the  dogs  were  deep  through  the  heart.     Although  one  of  them 


MR.      KN'KRSIl  K.I.I  )S      FIKI.I)  'l  R  1  .\  1 ,     WlXXl.Xi;      l-.Ni.M-Il 

SRRIXCKR     SI'.\XIKI..-^    OF    ,\  ].I\1:R     .\XI>     W'HITK     llRthli 

KKl'i;     FOR     WORK     .M.oXK  IX      THK     F.VMIl.V     t)F     THh 

r.OUOHF.\>    ol     .\<)U.\F.\  TK  I- OR    .\    HUXDRFl)    ^  K,\R> 


RKD   ANM)   WUriK    FIF.LD   TRIAL    WKLSH    SPRIXCP'.R    SPANIKI.S    l!l-.I,ONC;iXG   TO 

-MR.    A.    T.    WILLIAMS 


-Li)    IKL\I.    I-..\(.LL->11    S1*R1.\(;KR    SI'AMKLS    Ol'    IHK    LI\KR    AM)    WHITK  (AQUALATK)   HRKEE 

i:kl()X(;ix(;    io  mr.  c.  c.   1'.\  krsiikld 


SPANIELS  199 

was  a  black  in  colour,  he  was  most  removed  from  the  dog-show 
black  field  spaniels  and  all  of  them,  and  may  safely  be  called  by 
the  re-created  term  "springer." 

But  meantime  there  have  been  other  good  although  not 
remarkable  dogs  at  the  field  trials.  Mr.  Eversfield  has  had 
many,  Mr.  Alexander  has  always  been  hard  to  beat,  Mr.  Phillips 
has  had  some  excellent  clumbers,  as  also  has  Mr.  Winton 
Smith,  besides  Beechgrove  Bee  already  spoken  of,  and  Mr.  B.  J. 
Warwick  has  had  good  dogs.  Mr.  A.  T.  Williams,  of  Neath, 
has  had  good  teams  of  red-and-white  springers,  which  have,  as 
far  as  the  shows  are  concerned,  monopolised  the  classes  for  this 
one  colour.  It  is  said  to  have  been  bred  true  to  this  red-and- 
white  mixture  for  many  years  in  a  few  families  in  South  Wales. 
At  the  same  time,  there  were  other  families  in  South  Wales 
which  bred  spaniels  of  many  colours  for  the  woodcocks  and  the 
very  stiff  coverts  of  the  South-West  corner,  or  Little  England 
beyond  Wales,  as  it  was  called.  Thirty-five  years  ago  the 
author  shot  over  black-and-white,  liver-and-white,  and  red-and- 
white  dogs,  all  from  the  same  litters,  and  these  were  the  most 
determined  hunters  and  the  quickest  stayers  then  known.  But 
as  the  author  knows  of  none  now  representative  of  them 
except  the  red-and-white  Welsh  springers,  these  may  be  taken 
for  the  type,  and  they  are  undoubted  hard  workers  and  quite 
careless  of  bramble  and  gorse. 

Retrieving  spaniels  have  been  very  highly  spoken  of  by  as 
practical  big  bag-makers  as  the  late  Sir  Fred  Milbank,  who 
used  them  for  grouse  driving.  All  the  breeds  above  named 
retrieve  well  except  the  Welsh  springers,  none  of  which  have 
been  broken  with  that  intention,  so  far  as  is  known  to  the 
author.  Mr.  Williams  only  works  spaniels  in  coverts  and  in 
teams,  and  believes  that  a  retriever  proper  is  the  best  for  his 
own  work. 

It  is  not  possible  to  have  several  spaniels  seeking  dead  at 
one  time  unless  they  are  all  within  sight ;  but  there  is  no  fear  of 
tearing  the  game  when  the  dogs  can  be  seen,  as  they  can  be 
upon  a  moor,  or  in  open  cover,  or  in  fields. 

The  difference  of  opinion  between  sportsmen  as  to  which 


200  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

are  the  better  dogs  for  retrieving  probably  arises  because  of 
mental  reservations  of  those  who  express  opinions.  The 
advocates  of  spaniels  are  probably  speaking  of  a  team,  and 
those  who  sing  the  praises  of  retrievers  are  thinking  of  one 
retriever  against  one  spaniel.  Except  upon  the  line  of  a  runner, 
a  single  retriever  is  usually  much  better  than  a  single  spaniel  on 
any  ground,  and  although  the  spaniel  is  quicker  on  the  actual 
line  of  the  runner,  he  usually  takes  much  longer  than  the  retriever 
to  find  the  fall  of  the  bird  or  the  place  to  start  from.  Altogether, 
the  retriever  is  preferable,  unless  a  team  of  retrieving  spaniels 
can  be  worked  at  the  same  time,  and  even  then  several  retrievers 
will  probably  be  as  satisfactory,  except  that  they  take  up  more 
room  in  traps  and  motor  cars. 

The  best  spaniel  for  all  -  round  purposes  is  the  English 
springer ;  he  is  active,  stays  well,  and  can  retrieve  well.  The 
clumber  cannot  be  coupled  with  him,  because  he  is  not  supposed 
to  stay,  and  moreover  he  is  as  big  as  a  retriever  to  get  about 
country,  and  without  being  nearly  as  active.  In  the  New 
Forest,  where  shooters  are  limited  to  a  fixed  number  of  dogs, 
nobody  will  look  at  a  clumber ;  so  that  for  heavy  work  a  change 
of  team,  or  dog,  at  lunch-time  would  probably  be  needed  were 
clumbers  relied  upon.  No  such  charge  can  be  brought  against 
either  English  or  Welsh  springers,  but  the  cockers  are  only  one 
remove  better  than  toys,  the  field  black  spaniels,  and  the 
Sussex  breeds. 

Irish  water  spaniels  have  been  mostly  kept  and  altered  for 
show,  and  the  few  that  the  author  has  seen  at  work  of  late  years 
have  been  extremely  moderate  performers. 

The  Breaking  of  the  Spaniel 

The  spaniel  should  be  broken  early.  Eight  months  old  is 
quite  late  enough  to  enter  on  game  if  good  breaking  is  required, 
and  all  hand  breaking  should  precede  this  entry,  and  should 
follow  the  lines  proper  both  for  retrievers  and  pointers  as  far  as 
they  apply  to  individual  requirements. 

If  one  has  to  allow  dogs  to  "  run  in  "  and  chase  game,  to 


SPANIELS  201 

get  up  their  keenness  for  hunting,  it  is  a  misfortune,  and  the  task 
of  breaking  will  become  all  the  harder.  In  a  good  breed  this 
encouragement  will  not  be  required.  It  is  always  hard  to 
create  opposites  simultaneously,  and  to  make  a  dog  both  bold 
and  obedient. 

The  principal  requirement  in  the  hunting  spaniel  is  nose, 
quickness,  never  going  out  of  gun-shot,  instant  obedience,  and 
bustling  up  game  in  a  hurry  without  chasing  it  when  it  is  up, 
dropping  to  shot,  and  retrieving  dead  and  wounded  game  when 
told.  It  is  a  large  order,  and  yet  dogs  that  can  do  it  all  often 
make  no  more  than  £\^  at  auction,  and  sometimes  less. 

It  is  obvious  that  a  well-bred  spaniel  will  start  hunting  as 
soon  as  he  is  introduced  to  the  smell  of  game,  then  his  range 
must  be  taught  either  by  using  a  line  or  by  voice  and  whistle. 
In  thick  covert  the  former  is  not  possible.  The  principal 
difficulty  is  to  stop  the  puppy  as  soon  as  he  has  moved  his 
game.  Again,  either  voice  or  cord  can  be  made  to  do  the 
business,  but  probably  a  little  of  both  will  bring  about  the 
required  education  sooner  than  either  by  itself.  The  system 
should  be  to  prevent  the  chase,  not  to  punish  for  that  which  is 
instinctive  in  the  pupil.  Consequently,  the  quick  obedience  to 
voice  spoken  of  as  necessary  for  setters  and  pointers,  becomes 
doubly  so  for  spaniels,  and  they  really  ought  to  tumble  over  to 
voice  or  gun  as  if  the  latter  had  done  it.  But  this  instinctive 
obedience  cannot  be  taught  during  entry  upon  game,  and 
consequently  until  it  is  perfected  the  puppy  is  not  fit  to  enter. 

It  is  much  more  of  a  strain  on  the  instinct  of  the  spaniel  to 
stop  him  when  he  is  bustling  up  game  than  it  is  to  stop  the 
setter  when  game  rises  or  runs  away  from  his  point.  In  one 
case  restraint  follows  upon  restraint,  in  the  other  it  follows 
excitement  let  loose. 

Retrieving  should  be  taught  the  same  way  as  for  a  retriever 
proper,  and  if  it  precedes  the  work  of  entering  upon  the  finding 
of  live  game,  the  latter  will  be  all  the  easier  for  the  breaker. 

Wild  spaniels  in  very  thick  cover  are  of  more  use  than  a 
highly  broken  team.  Where  the  covert  is  so  thick  that  a  worker 
of  spaniels  cannot  get  into  the  thick  parts,  his  highly  broken 


202  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

dogs  will  not  go  there  either,  because  they  have  learnt  to  keep 
near  to  him.  In  this  case,  four  or  six  couples  of  wild  spaniels 
to  hunt  up  wild  pheasants,  woodcock,  and  rabbits,  make  beautiful 
sport,  but  they  usually  need  several  whippers-in  to  keep  them 
somewhere  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  shooters. 

A  friend  of  the  author's  was  once  expatiating  on  the  improved 
methods  of  pheasant  shooting,  and  explaining  that  the  last 
generation  knew  nothing  of  the  charms  and  the  art  of  killing 
driven  birds,  when,  at  that  moment,  wild  spaniels  on  the  hill 
above  us  flushed  four  cock  pheasants,  they  came  at  us  swerving 
through  the  trees  down  hill  at  a  cannon-ball  pace,  and  four 
shots  did  not  touch  a  feather.  Yet  this  was  the  old  style  of 
pheasant  shooting — at  least  in  that  district,  and  it  was  on 
record  there  that  the  last  generation  were  first-rate  performers 
in  covert  and  out.  Amongst  other  birds  they  killed  flighting 
duck  and  sometimes  flighting  teal  also  at  night,  all  of  which, 
including  the  down-hill  rocketers  from  the  spaniels  on  the  hill- 
side, are  out  of  all  proportion  harder  to  kill  than  the  best  birds 
that  ever  flew  across  the  open  and  flat  ground  from  one  covert 
to  another,  however  the  latter  have  "  sailed "  and  "  curved " 
in  their  flights. 

By  mutual  consent,  after  missing  the  cocks,  we  changed  the 
subject  of  conversation. 

It  has  been  said  that  field  trials  have  brought  some  good 
dogs  to  the  front,  and  enabled  those  who  go  to  trials  to  judge 
for  themselves  of  the  merits  of  individuals  and  of  races ;  but 
they  have  also  done  injury  in  one  direction.  There  may  be 
differences  of  opinion  amongst  sportsmen  on  how  spaniels  should 
be  judged  at  field  trials,  but  there  can  be  no  question  that 
the  use  of  field  trials  as  a  mere  show  dog  advertisement  is 
misleading  and  objectionable.  As  these  remarks  are  written, 
there  is  an  advertisement  of  spaniels  appearing  in  which  it  is 
stated  that  the  owner's  breed  has  won  "  800  field  trial  and 
show  prizes."  What  the  author  knows  of  the  breed  is  that  upon 
one  occasion  they  won  a  prize  at  a  field  trial, — a  prize  that 
was  ear-marked  for  the  breed, — and  won  it  because  competition 
was  weak  and  limited.     That  they  have  won  799  show  prizes 


SPANIELS  203 

is  not  denied.  But  if  this  is  the  way  to  advertise  show  dogs, 
then  the  sooner  field  trials  are  dropped  the  better  in  the  true 
interests  of  sport.  In  this  direction  lies  the  danger  to  sporting 
interests ;  and  little  differences  about  means  and  methods  of 
judging  are  o{  comparatively  no  importance.  A  variety  of  judges 
have  acted  under  a  large  variety  of  rules,  and  to  the  credit  of 
the  former,  and  in  spite  of  the  latter,  the  best  dogs  have 
nearly,  or  quite  always,  got  the  stakes.  But  there  is  also 
a  tendency  amongst  judges  to  give  the  smaller  prizes  and 
certificates  of  merit  because  a  dog  has  done  no  harm,  although 
he  may  not  have  done  any  good. 

If  it  is  correct  to  absolutely  disqualify  a  dog  for  ranging 
beyond  gun-shot  and  for  chasing  game  (and  it  must  be  so  in 
the  interests  of  sport),  then,  on  the  ground  that  every  dog  can 
be  broken  but  not  a  tenth  of  them  are  worth  breaking,  it  is 
also  essential  to  disqualify  a  dog  that  cannot  find  game. 

It  is  because  the  latter  has  not  always  been  done  that  these 
remarks  are  necessary.  The  quantity  of  game  left  behind 
unfound  by  the  dogs  that  have  won  minor  prizes  has  surprised 
not  only  the  author,  but  others  also  who  have  come  to  visit 
these  trials  once,  and  no  more.  On  the  other  hand,  the  best 
winners  have  always  been  the  best  finders  that  passed  the  not 
very  severe  breaking  standard,  as  indicated  above,  and  that  is 
obviously  right. 


GROUSE  THAT  LIE  AND   GROUSE 
THAT   FLY 

THE  shooter  who  wants  grouse  driving  and  he  who  wishes 
for  shooting  over  dogs  are  by  no  means  best  suited 
in  the  same  districts.  The  distribution  of  grouse  must  be 
mentioned  before  any  just  estimation  of  the  causes  of  the 
different  manners,  habits,  and  instincts  of  the  grouse  can 
be  formed. 

The  birds  have  one  special  altitude  which  suits  them  best 
in  each  locality,  but  this  particular  altitude  differs  with  latitude 
and  longitude. 

Where  the  grouse  are  best  served  by  high  altitudes  is  in 
the  south-eastern  border  of  their  distribution.  They  are  at 
home  on  the  top  of  the  Peak  district  of  Derbyshire,  and  exist 
much  lower  down.  Farther  north  and  farther  west  their  best 
moors  are  lower,  and  this  goes  on  until  in  Caithness  the 
best  elevation  for  the  grouse  is  only  about  lOO  feet  above 
sea-level,  as  it  is  also  in  Argyllshire.  Over  all  the  inter- 
mediate country,  between  parallel  lines  pointing  north-east  and 
south-west,  the  grouse  are  best  served  by  an  intermediate 
elevation  of  moorland  decreasing  towards  the  north-west.  They 
exist  in  large  numbers,  but  not  the  largest  numbers,  above  and 
below  this  elevation.  This  is  generally  true,  and  although 
it  would  be  easy  to  point  to  moors  a  few  hundred  feet  out  of 
the  theoretical  best  elevation  that  are  better  than  others  exactly 
in  it,  there  are  then  always  local  conditions  that  favour  such 
moors,  and  these  are  not  to  be  found  on  the  moors  in  the 
better  elevations  on  the  same  parallels.  The  moors  of  Dart- 
moor and  the  heaths  of  Norfolk  are  both  on  the  same  north- 

204 


GROUSE  THAT  LIE  AND  GROUSE  THAT  FLY     205 

east  to  south-west  parallels.  Probably  neither  of  them  are  for 
the  most  part  high  enough  to  suit  grouse  in  that  latitude  and 
longitude.  It  must  be  remembered  that  if  red  grouse  are,  as 
is  believed  to  be  the  case,  the  same  bird  as  the  willow  grouse,  or 
rype,  they  are  of  Arctic  origin,  and,  like  other  organisms  of  that 
origin,  survive  out  of  the  Arctic  regions  only  at  certain 
higher  altitudes  as  latitude  decreases.  The  lower  Dartmoor 
is  obviously  too  low  for  them,  but  possibly  places  could  be 
discovered  on  the  moor  where  they  would  do  well.  The 
lower  moors  there  are  smothered  with  the  bell  heather  (erica), 
and  this  is  not  the  food  of  the  grouse.  The  real "  ling  "  {callund) 
of  the  grouse  food  grows  on  Dartmoor  much  more  scarcely, 
and  although  there  is  plenty  for  old  grouse,  it  is  not  easy 
to  see  how  chicks  could  get  about  to  find  enough  of  their 
natural  food  amongst  what,  to  them,  would  be  forests  of 
useless  vegetation — namely,  the  bell  heather.  On  the  South 
Wales  moors  the  grouse  are  not  very  plentiful ;  but  the  species 
is  better  served  in  North  Wales,  which  is  on  the  same  north- 
east by  south-west  parallel  line  as  Yorkshire. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  these  parallels  also  supply  an  index 
to  the  wildness  or  otherwise  of  the  grouse,  but  not  exactly. 
It  would  be  more  nearly  correct  to  say  that  this  is  true 
except  so  far  as  it  is  modified  by  insular  conditions.  What 
is  meant  is  that  the  parallel  lines  hold  good  except  as  regard 
the  islands  where  the  grouse  lie  better  than  their  north- 
westwardness  would  suggest  from  the  behaviour  of  the  grouse 
in  the  same  parallels  on  the  mainland. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  wet  climate  makes  birds  lie : 
this  is  obviously  wrong,  because  they  do  so  in  Caithness, 
which  is  the  dryest  county  in  Scotland  by  the  statistics. 

It  has  also  lately  been  repeatedly  said  that  the  Gulf  Stream 
makes  them  lie,  but  this  also  is  surely  wrong,  because  the  one 
part  most  affected  by  the  Gulf  Stream  is  the  Port  Patrick 
promontory  in  Wigtonshire,  where  the  author  has  found  the 
grouse  as  wild  as  in  Aberdeenshire.  Yet  in  Arran  and  in  Islay, 
but  slightly  to  the  north-west  of  this  point,  they  lie  like  stones 
all  the  year.     They  do  so  also  on  the  west  coast  of  Argyllshire, 


206  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

on  that  of  Ross-shire,  and  in  the  whole  of  Sutherland-  and 
Caithness-shires,  and  also  in  the  Lews  and  that  group,  in  Skye 
and  in  the  Orkneys. 

Elevation  makes  no  difference  to  their  instinctive  habits, 
which  are  clearly  in-bred  in  the  birds,  and  whether  in  the 
same  districts  grouse  are  found  at  2000  or  at  100  feet  above 
sea-level  their  instinctive  habits  will  be  always  those  of  the 
district,  and  are  not  varied  by  hill  and  strath. 

What,  then,  is  it  that  makes  some  birds  lie  for  security 
all  the  season,  and  others  fly  for  security  as  soon  as  they  can 
use  their  wings  ?  It  has  been  said  that  if  you  drive  birds  one 
year  you  will  always  have  to  drive  them,  because  it  alters 
their  characters.  The  author  held  to  that  faith  for  years,  but 
has  lived  to  see  the  error  of  his  imaginings.  It  is  very  natural 
to  suppose,  if  you  teach  the  parents  to  fly  for  life,  that  the 
children  will  inherit  the  same  habit  also.  But  although  the 
author  would  be  far  from  asserting,  as  some  naturalists  do, 
that  life-acquired  habits  are  never  transmitted,  he  knows  that 
they  are  not  often  transmitted,  and  thinks  that  the  growing, 
or  rather  grown,  wildness  of  Yorkshire  grouse  can  be  amply 
explained  on  the  Darwinian  theory  of  the  survival  and  breeding 
of  the  fittest. 

Early  in  the  nineteenth  century  the  celebrated  Colonel 
Hawker  found  the  grouse  so  wild  that  he  took  himself  back  to 
Hampshire,  voting  grouse  in  August  a  fraud.  He  only  shot  a  few 
that  sat  better  than  the  rest,  which  implied  that  all  those  that 
sat  worse  than  the  rest  were  saved  for  breeding.  This  natural 
selection  of  the  fittest  went  on  for  another  fifty  years,  and  then 
people  took  to  driving  grouse  because  they  could  get  them  in 
large  quantities  no  other  way.  That  seems  simple  enough ; 
fifty  or  one  hundred  generations  of  selection  of  the  wildest  for 
breeding,  and  of  the  youngest  for  the  pot,  made  the  Yorkshire 
grouse  breed  earlier  and  breed  wilder  birds  than  before. 

There  is  a  natural  and  obvious  apparent  difficulty  in 
accepting  this  theory,  but  it  is  only  apparent  and  not  real. 
It  is  this  : — Why  did  not  the  grouse  get  wild  in  the  same  way 
and  degree  in  the  Highlands  and  the  Islands  and  in  Caithness- 


GROUSE  THAT  LIE  AND  GROUSE  THAT  FLY     207 

shire?  The  reason  why  they  did  not  is  probably  that  the 
Yorkshire  grouse  began  by  being  strong  enough  and  early 
enough  to  all  rise  in  a  brood  by  the  12th  of  August.  Conse- 
quently, the  early  broods  were  saved.  The  Caithness-shire 
grouse  and  those  of  the  Lews  were  later,  and  never  were  all 
ready  to  rise  together  in  a  brood  by  the  12th  of  August,  and 
consequently  the  most  backward  were  saved,  since  both 
barrels  would  be  discharged  at  those  first  up,  and  the  crouchers 
escaped  while  the  shot  was  being  rammed  home  in  the  muzzle- 
loaders. 

If  this  is  the  true  explanation  of  the  difference  of  habit 
of  the  birds,  its  root  cause  can  be  seen  at  a  glance  every 
autumn  on  the  heather — that  is  to  say,  its  root  cause,  when 
the  shot  gun  was  first  used  to  kill  grouse  upon  the  wing, 
was  in  the  state  of  the  heather.  The  bloom  of  this  plant 
indicates  the  period  when  it  started  to  shoot,  and  that  is  a 
fortnight  earlier  in  Yorkshire  than  in  Caithness  and  the  Lews. 
It  may  be  three  weeks,  or  even  more,  but  it  is  at  least 
a  fortnight. 

The  starting  to  bloom  has  no  influence  directly  on  the  grouse 
nesting,  but  the  starting  of  the  plant  to  shoot  has;  and  therefore 
if  the  survival  of  the  fittest  theory  is  accepted,  all  the  wildness  of 
the  south-eastern  grouse,  and  the  hiding  habit,  or  natural 
instinct,  of  the  north-western  grouse  is  explained  by  the  state  of 
forwardness  of  vegetation  in  the  districts  two  hundred  years 
ago,  which  in  all  probability  was  relatively  what  it  is  now. 

Of  course,  what  will  make  wild  grouse  lie  now  has  not  much 
to  do  with  the  matter.  Falcons  will  make  them  lie,  eagles  will 
generally  make  them  fly,  as  also  will  ravens.  The  birds  are  not 
very  discriminating  either,  and  make  mistakes,  for  they  fre- 
quently lie  well  under  an  artificial  kite,  and  fly  away  if  they  see 
a  heron  in  the  sky.  Probably  they  mistake  one  for  a  peregrine 
and  the  other  for  an  eagle.  But  there  do  not  appear  to  be 
enough  peregrines  anywhere  now  to  permanently  affect  the 
habits  of  grouse.  Probably  when  there  were  lots  of  them  all 
grouse  did  lie  well ;  we  know  that  they  did  so,  even  in  October, 
in   the    Duke   of    Gordon's    country   in   the   time   of    Colonel 


208  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

Thornton's  tour  in  the  Highlands,  about  1803.  But  the 
peregrines  have  not  ceased  to  exist  merely  in  patches  of 
country,  and  certainly  not  in  the  same  degree  as  the  south- 
east line  of  grouse  distribution  is  remote  or  the  reverse. 
It  is  clearly  because  of  the  falcons  that  the  grouse  acquired 
the  habit  of  lying  and  hiding  from  danger  in  the  first  instance 
everywhere  alike.  That  is  not  the  question,  but  how  it 
happened  that  when  the  danger  ceased  to  exist  in  magnitude 
one  lot  of  grouse  preserved  the  ancient  instinct  and  the  other 
lot  lost  it. 

Grouse  that  lie  for  protection  are  often  spoken  of  as  "  tame," 
but  this  term  hardly  truly  expresses  the  primitive  instincts  found 
in  the  grouse  of  Ireland  and  the  west  and  north  of  Scotland, 
Grey-lag  geese  in  Caithness,  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine 
times  in  a  thousand,  will  fly  at  the  sight  of  man ;  but  once,  at 
least,  a  grey-lag  was  observed  cowering  under  an  artificial 
kite,  and  this  was  not  because  he  was  tamer  than  usual,  but 
because  he  was  more  scared  and  more  wild  than  ever  before, 
or  since — for  he  was  shot. 

Most  shooters  in  Scotland  have  doubtless  observed  that  a 
little  bad  weather  sends  a  lot  of  old  grouse  on  to  the  tops  of  the 
hills,  not  on  the  high  ptarmigan  tops,  but  on  to  the  bare  places 
on  the  hills  immediately  above  heather  slopes.  There  they 
would  not  dare  to  go  if  there  were  a  few  peregrines  about, 
because  on  such  ground  they  are  at  the  long-winged  hawk's 
mercy.  It  was  not  until  between  1840  and  i860  that  much 
headway  was  made  in  Scotland  against  the  hawks,  and  it  is 
quite  probable  that  the  grouse  never  would  have  acquired  a 
taste  for  the  "  tops  "  if  the  peregrines  had  not  been  killed,  and 
the  present  trouble  about  killing  the  old  cocks  would  never  have 
occurred  in  Scotland.  This  subject  is  referred  to  at  greater  lergth 
and  in  more  aspects  in  the  chapter  dealing  with  grouse  bags. 

In  Yorkshire,  however,  it  seems  obvious  that  the  grouse 
were  made  wild  by  Act  of  Parliament — that  is,  by  the  fixing  of 
a  date  for  the  opening  of  shooting  which  suited  Scotland  but 
did  not  suit  Yorkshire  at  tliat  time. 

As  everyone  knows,  there  are  doubts  in  the  Highlands  of 


GROUSE  THAT  LIE  AND  GROUSE  THAT  FLY     209 

Scotland  as  to  the  best  means  of  shooting  a  moor  for  the  benefit 
of  its  next  season's  stock.  From  a  conversation  the  author  had 
in  1905  with  Captain  Tomasson,  who  is  the  most  successful  of 
preservers  in  Scotland  by  the  almost  exclusive  driving  method, 
the  writer  gathered  that  on  one  or  two  points  Captain 
Tomasson  could  criticise  some  articles  that  the  author  had 
previously  written,  and  do  it  in  a  manner  to  throw  more  light 
on  the  subject,  and  for  this  reason  he  asked  the  tenant  of  Hunt- 
hill  if  he  would  write  a  criticism  of  those  articles,  handling  them 
in  as  severe  a  manner  as  possible.  The  latter  very  kindly  con- 
sented, and  the  following  letter  is  the  result ;  but  the  ever-present 
want  of  space  has  not  permitted  more  than  an  outline  of  his 
views,  which  more  elaboration  would  make  very  much  more 
interesting  than  this  all  too  short  letter  is,  or  could  be,  from  the 
nature  of  the  case.  In  the  next  chapter  the  author  has 
endeavoured  to  repeat  the  substance  of  the  articles  already 
referred  to,  in  order  that  as  much  grouse  lore  as  is  practicable 
may  be  stored  in  this  little  work  on  so  many  shooting 
subjects.  The  articles  referred  to  were  entitled  "The 
Difference  of  Effect  in  Driving  Grouse  in  England  and  in 
Scotland,"  or  some  such  title,  and  it  was  not  sought  to  be 
proved  that  driving  was  bad  for  Scotland,  but  merely  that 
whereas  driving  increased  Yorkshire  grouse  by  800  or  more  per 
cent.,  it  has  not  done  anything  for  Scotland.  This  is  not  to 
prove  it  bad,  but  merely  to  suggest  that  what  has  been  gained  in 
one  way  has  been  lost  in  another.  That  partial  driving  has 
reduced  disease  in  Scotland  is  not  likely,  because  we  find  that  it 
is  no  more  prevalent  in  Caithness,  where  there  is  no  driving, 
than  in  the  Highlands  where  there  is.  Besides  that,  can  we  expect 
it  to  do  so  when  it  failed  so  lamentably  in  Yorkshire,  which  was 
much  more  "driven"  in  and  before  1872  than  Scotland  is  now, 
and  yet  this  practice  was  followed  there  by  an  outbreak  of 
disease  in  1873  and  1874  that  has  never  been  paralleled  since? 
The  author's  opinion  is  that  bags  made  in  these  days  truly 
indicate  the  stock  of  grouse;  but  when,  in  1872,  there  were 
10,600  grouse  killed  over  dogs  by  three  parties  of  two 
each  on  Glenbuchat,  averaging  100  brace  a  day  to  each  party 
14 


210  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

(a  fact  which  the  owner,  Mr.  Barclay,  has  been  kind  enough  to 
give  me),  there  must  then  have  been  enough  grouse  left  to 
have  doubled  the  bag  had  driving  occurred  afterwards.  The 
birds  would  not  lie  to  be  shot  then  in  the  middle  of  September, 
as  everyone  knows. 

It  may  be  fairly  asked,  "What  is  the  use  of  double 
numbers  if  you  cannot  shoot  them  ?  "  But  that  raises  a  very 
broad  issue,  and  what  the  author  has  in  mind  is  that  over- 
shooting now  is  far  worse  than  want  of  attention  was  then.  It  is 
stated  in  a  pamphlet  issued  by  the  Grouse  Commission,  that  one 
acre  of  good  young  heather  is  enough  to  keep  a  covey  of  grouse 
for  the  season.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  moor  is  lucky  when  it 
rears  half  a  grouse  to  the  acre  instead  of  a  whole  brood.  In  the 
author's  belief  there  is  no  reason  past  human  powers  to  remove, 
why  the  acre  should  not  breed  the  brood  instead  of  the  half- 
grouse.  In  fact,  he  has  taken  up  this  question  in  order  to  draw 
attention  not  only  to  the  fact  that  season's  bags  are  smaller 
than  they  were  in  spite  of  improvements  of  all  sorts,  but  to  try 
and  induce  a  search  for  a  reason  for  this  state  of  things  in  a 
contrary  direction  to  that  being  taken.  For  this  purpose  he 
would  refer  possible  readers  to  his  chapter  on  "  Game  Birds' 
Diseases,"  and  would  also  call  to  mind  the  very  suggestive  phase 
of  wild  life  from  Africa — namely,  that  when  antelopes,  buffalo, 
and  zebra  were  in  countless  millions,  nothing  in  the  shape  of 
disease  retarded  their  increase,  but  as  soon  as  they  came  to 
exist  in  isolation  and  small  flocks,  disease  stepped  in  and  well- 
nigh  exterminated  them.  That  the  micro-organisms  of  some 
diseases  are  often  present  in  the  blood  of  the  big  game  animals 
and  do  them  no  injury,  although  they  may  be  injurious  to  other 
animals,  is  also  very  suggestive  of  what  may  be  possible  in 
the  future  on  our  grouse  moors  —  that  is,  if  the  practice  of 
devoting  them  exclusively  to  grouse  is  persisted  in. 

"  WooDTHORPE,  Nottingham 
"  October  2nd,  1906 

"Dear  Mr.  Buckell, — You  ask  me  what  I  think  as  to 
your  views  re  grouse  driving  in  Scotland,  and  the  conversations 


GROUSE  THAT  LIE  AND  GROUSE  THAT  FLY     211 

we  had  together.     I  do  not  like   to  attempt   to  criticise,  as  I 
agree  with  you  in  nearly  eveiything. 

"  As  far  as  I  can  see,  the  point  is  this,  whether  the  introduc- 
tion of  driving  has  resulted  in  larger  bags  in  Scotland  than  in 
previous  years?  The  case  that  you  so  ably  put  forward  and 
support  with  so  many  industriously  collected  facts  and  with 
such  originality  resolves  itself  into  the  statement  that  there  are 
not  now  so  many  grouse  in  Scotland  as  there  were  in  the  years 
1872  and  1888,  which  you  rightly  regard  as  the  maximum 
seasons  during  the  dogging  period,  I  think  the  comparison  is 
hardly  a  fair  one,  as  of  course  you  have  taken  the  very  best 
years  in  the  memory  of  man.  What  my  experience  shows 
used  to  happen  in  the  old  years  was  that  on  these  moors  (many 
of  them  of  much  larger  area  than  at  present)  very  large  stocks 
of  grouse  were  left  in  favourable  years,  and  these  were 
augmented  as  the  seasons  went  on  till  at  the  end  of  the  seventh 
year  or  so  there  was  undoubtedly  a  very  large  stock  of  grouse 
left.  Big  bags  were  made,  but  it  was  entirely  hopeless  with  the 
means  then  at  one's  command  to  cope  with  those  great  hordes 
of  grouse ;  then  came  the  disease,  and  swept  everything  clean 
away.  What  we  contend  has  been  the  principal  advantage  of 
driving  in  Scotland  is  that  we  are  enabled  to  control  the  out- 
breaks of  disease  to  a  greater  extent  than  formerly — that  is,  we 
kill  by  driving  the  older  birds,  leaving  young  and  vigorous 
stock ;  that  we  are  enabled  to  keep  the  birds  within  moderate 
dimensions ;  and  that  though  we  may  not  be  able  to  have  so 
many  birds  on  our  moors  as  in  1872  and  1888  (nor  is  it  desirable), 
yet,  taking  the  run  of  the  seasons  through,  we  kill  more  birds 
off  our  ground  than  was  the  case  in  previous  years.  The 
seasons  average  better,  but  they  are  not  as  they  used  to  be  in 
the  old  days — three  good  seasons,  three  very  bad  ones,  and  one 
moderate  one.  Now  there  are  two  moderate  seasons  and 
probably  five  good  ones.  For  myself,  I  should  go  much  farther 
than  this.  It  is  only  a  series  of  accidents,  in  my  opinion,  that 
has  prevented  the  grouse  stocks  in  Scotland  from  being  quite 
as  heavy  as  they  were  in  1888. 

"  Undoubtedly  the  grouse  seasons  run  in  cycles  through 
some  mysterious  law  which  we  are  at  present  unable  to  fathom. 
Towards  the  end  of  the  period  one  sees  birds  on  the  moors 
getting  to  look  shabby  and  bad.  In  the  old  dogging  days 
immense  quantities  of  these  birds  were  left  all  over  the  place. 
Now  we  are  able  to  kill  them  off  by  driving  and  working  the 
burnsides.  In  the  non-driving  era  in  stepped  the  disease  and 
swept  everything  off  the  moor,  and  we  had  to  wait  in  patience 


212  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

till  things  recovered.  Nowadays  we  shoot  a  little  harder  than 
usual,  kill  off  all  the  bad  birds,  and  leave  a  fair  stock,  which 
with  easy  shooting  soon  comes  round  again.  For  some  years 
we  have  been  unfortunate  with  these  periods.  Thus  in  1 894  a 
very  large  stock  of  birds  was  left,  which  in  the  ordinary  course 
would  have  been  the  foundation  of  record  seasons  in  the  next 
two  years,  but  the  terrible  winter  of  1895,  which  killed  so  many 
thousands  of  grouse,  spoilt  this  period,  and  things  had  to  begin 
afresh,  though  very  large  stocks  had  worked  up  again  by  1901. 
With  the  terrible  storm  of  the  spring  of  1902,  which  practically 
destroyed  most  of  the  older  heather  on  the  East  Coast,  the 
period  was  again  prevented  from  giving  the  results  it  should 
have  done.  We  have  now  got  up  the  stocks  again  to  very 
large  dimensions,  and  with  luck  and  the  absence  of  disease 
should  break  all  records  in  the  next  seasons. 

"  I  take  it  that  the  more  food  there  is  for  grouse  the  better. 
The  evidence  is  that  a  grouse  makes  several  thousand  pecks  of 
heather  each  day  before  he  gets  his  full  supply  of  food.  I  think 
the  bird  only  feeds  for  a  very  limited  time  each  night,  and  the 
shorter  the  distance  he  has  to  go  for  his  food  the  better,  and  as 
he  feeds  mostly  just  as  it  is  getting  dusk  he  is  not  very  well 
able  to  distinguish  between  good  and  bad  heather,  and  often 
gets  a  craw  full  of  stuff  which  does  not  agree  with  him.  If  you 
notice  (as  it  is  on  most  of  the  Welsh  moors)  where  the  sheep 
have  grazed  the  heather  up  to  a  wire  fence,  on  the  other  side  of 
the  fence  the  heather  is  perfectly  good,  and  every  grouse  will  be 
found  feeding  on  it.  If  through  the  late  spring  or  from  other 
causes  one  cannot  get  a  portion  of  the  moor  burnt,  that  part 
will  invariably  have  less  grouse  on  it  than  where  there  is  young 
heather. 

"  I  do  not  think  sheep  of  a  certain  class  do  much  harm  on  a 
grouse  moor  if  they  are  properly  looked  after.  The  trouble  is 
that  shepherds  do  not  take  enough  pains  to  keep  things  quiet. 
Breeding  ewes  are  very  bad  when  the  lambing  takes  place  on 
the  heather,  as  the  shepherd  must  be  continually  moving  about 
among  them,  and  disturbing  the  ground  at  the  very  time  the 
grouse  are  nesting.  Provided  sheep  are  lambed  on  the  green 
fields  below  the  heather,  and  provided  the  shepherd  is  careful 
and  goes  about  his  work  quietly,  I  think  sheep  do  no  great 
harm  ;  and  undoubtedly  the  paths  they  make  through  the 
heather  are  an  advantage  to  the  grouse,  which  are  then  enabled 
to  move  their  broods  about  more  easily.  There  is  much  more 
heather  where  there  are  no  sheep,  and  the  more  heather  you 
have   the   more   grouse    there   will    be.      On    a   driving   moor 


GROUSE  THAT  LIE  AND  GROUSE  THAT  FLY     213 

especially  sheep  are  better  off  the  ground.  The  long  line  of 
drivers  move  the  sheep  a  great  deal,  and  in  hot  weather  this  is 
bad  for  the  sheep.  One  can  leave  big  masses  of  birds  on  the 
march  secure  in  the  knowledge  that  there  is  no  shepherd  to 
come  along  and  put  them  into  a  neighbouring  moor.  The 
wire  fences,  which  are  a  necessity  where  sheep  are  present,  are, 
of  course,  death-traps  for  grouse. — Yours  sincerely, 

"W.  H.  TOMASSON" 


RED  GROUSE 

Grouse  Preserving  and  Grouse  Bags  as  affected  by 
THE  Methods  of  Shooting,  Presence  of  Sheep, 
Draining  of  Moors,  Burning  of  Heather,  and 
the  Breeding  by  Hand — 

i.  as  regards  england 

2.  In  REFERENCE  TO  SCOTLAND 

3.  In  REGARD  TO  WALES 

THEORETICALLY  the  stock  of  grouse  ought  to  depend 
upon  the  amount  of  food  present  on  the  moorlands  on 
which  they  live.  In  practice  it  does  nothing  of  the  kind — at  least, 
not  if  we  consider  heather  to  be  the  food  of  the  grouse.  A  sheep 
will  eat  twenty  times  as  much  food  as  a  grouse,  and  if  only 
half  the  sheep  diet  is  heather,  which  is  giving  them  a  larger 
proportion  of  grass  than  they  can  get  on  most  moors,  then  in 
theory  it  ought  to  be  that  the  clearing  of  one  sheep  off  an  acre 
upon  which  there  was  but  one  grouse  should  result  in  an 
addition  of  ten  grouse  to  that  acre.  But  in  practice  it  is  doubt- 
ful whether  it  results  in  one  single  added  grouse,  or  even 
one  additional  to  100  acres.  But  this  is  not  any  proof  that 
the  removal  of  sheep  is  bad  policy.  There  are  so  many  other 
things  that  have  to  be  taken  into  account.  Whether  the  sheep 
do  harm  or  good  by  themselves  is  not  certain,  but  in  any  case 
the  shepherding  is  very  bad  for  grouse  chicks  that  have  just 
strength  enough  to  go  a  long  way  down  hill  and  none  to  get  back 
again  to  the  brooding  parent  birds.  The  latter  cannot  carry  their 
young  like  a  woodcock,  nor  can  they,  like  a  Parliamentary 
bird  of  fame,  be  in  two  places   at  once.     The  author  has  not 


RED  GROUSE  215 

been  able  to  arrive  at  any  very  definite  conclusion  in  regard 
to  the  negative  or  positive  value  of  the  presence  of  sheep 
themselves,  the  evidence  is  so  very  conflicting.  On  the  Ruabon 
Hills  there  are  5000  sheep  on  the  7000  acres  of  the 
most  productive  grouse  ground  in  Wales ;  moreover,  there 
are  70  commoners  who  each  have  a  few  dogs,  and  the  latter's 
business  is  to  keep  the  sheep  off  the  cultivated  fields,  either 
in  the  presence  of  their  masters  or  not,  as  convenience  and 
occasion  serves.  Then,  on  Mr.  Lloyd  Price's  bigger  moor 
of  Rhiwlas,  the  sheep  have  been  reduced  to  a  minimum, 
and  belong  to  the  keeper.  Yet  here  1000  brace  has  been 
about  the  best  of  the  bags,  but  they  have  been  improving. 
Now,  if  these  two  moors  grew  heather  of  equal  merit,  and  if 
they  were  at  equal  elevations,  we  could  say  at  once  that  sheep 
are  valuable  to  grouse.  But  these  things  are  very  different 
on  those  two  moors,  and  we  can  say  nothing,  but  merely 
record  the  facts.  Again,  in  Yorkshire  the  fashion  has  been  to 
decrease  the  sheep  to  disappearing  point ;  but  when  Lord 
Walsingham  made  his  great  personal  bag  of  1070  grouse 
in  the  day  on  a  2200  acre  moor,  there  were  1400  sheep 
upon  it,  and  there  were  nearly  2000  grouse  killed  there  in 
that  season.  Even  now,  in  Yorkshire,  Askrigg  is  about  as 
productive,  acre  for  acre,  as  any  moor,  and  it  is  common  land, 
and  fairly  swarms  with  sheep.  On  the  other  hand,  this  is 
not  true  of  Broomhead,  where  a  grouse  and  a  half  to  the  acre 
have  been  got  before  now,  but  it  was  true  of  practically  all  the 
moors  where  great  bags  were  made  in  1871  and  1872  and 
before.  And  as  the  general  grouse  stock  has  never  again 
reached  the  level  of  those  years,  it  may  be  that  there  is  some 
value  in  sheep  that  has  not  been  discovered,  and  to  which  we 
cannot  give  a  name.  Some  people  believe  that  the  sheep  help 
the  grouse  in  winter,  by  uncovering  the  heather  when  it  is  snow- 
buried.  Probably  there  is  a  good  deal  to  be  said  for  that,  but 
more  upon  high  ground  than  low  moors,  because  of  course  the 
object  is  to  keep  the  grouse  at  home,  and  prevent  them  from 
migrating  down  the  straths  in  those  large  packs  that  may  or 
may  not  return  again.     On  the  lowest  moors  in  the  district    it 


2i6  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

is  probable  that  there  is  less  advantage  in  keeping  the  birds 
from  seeking  winter  food  elsewhere.  They  must  needs  go  for 
it  below  the  heather  belt,  and  this  ground  will  not  keep  them 
in  the  spring,  as  the  lower  moors  undoubtedly  keep  a  large 
number  of  those  grouse  that  in  hard  weather  visit  them  from 
higher  moors.  No  doubt  many  half-starved  grouse  get  killed 
when  they  visit  lower  grouse,  and  arable,  ground,  but  unless 
the  snow  disappears  very  early  in  the  spring  the  lowest  moors 
are  always  favoured  by  some  visitors  stopping  to  breed.  For 
them  this  is  a  change  of  blood,  which  possibly  the  higher  eleva- 
tion birds  never  do  get.  Be  this  as  it  may,  there  is  always 
some  moor  in  a  neighbourhood,  just  as  there  is  a  piece  of 
ground  on  nearly  every  shooting,  that  will  at  all  times  have 
more  grouse  upon  it  than  are  bred  there,  except  when  birds  are 
too  young  to  travel  far.  It  is  difficult  to  put  a  limit  on  these 
winter  movements,  or  to  give  any  idea  how  far  the  birds  may 
not  go  for  "  black  ground." 

This  seems  to  depend  a  good  deal  upon  the  way  the  snow 
comes  and  stops.  It  may  be  affirmed  that  no  matter  how  far  it 
may  be  off  them,  if  grouse  can  see  black  ground  when  their  own 
is  under  frozen  snow  they  will  go  to  it.  This  in  turn  may  be 
covered  up,  and  then  they  will  again  go  downwards.  The  late 
Mr.  Dunbar,  who  sublet  most  of  Sir  Tollemache  Sinclair's 
shootings  in  Caithness,  told  the  author  that  he  had  known  the 
Caithness  grouse  driven  to  the  seashore  in  hard  weather,  when 
the  heather  was  all  covered  with  snow.  It  would  be  a  most 
excellent  arrangement  of  Nature  that  the  grouse  go  for  food 
wherever  it  is  to  be  had,  if  it  were  left  to  Nature,  but  it  is  not. 
People  on  the  cultivated  farms  regard  the  arrival  of  the  grouse 
as  a  great  day,  in  which  Providence  has  sought  them  out  for 
a  blessing,  just  as  the  Israelites  in  the  Wilderness  thought  about 
the  quail,  which  were  possibly  merely  seeking  their  own 
migratory  ends,  like  the  starving  grouse.  Those  on  the  lower 
moors  see  increased  numbers  of  grouse,  and  kill  them,  knowing 
that  if  they  do  not  somebody  else  will.  So  that  the  general 
result  of  this  migration  is  that  the  total  stock  of  the  whole 
county,   or  country,   is  kept  much  lower   than  any   sportsmen 


RED  GROUSE  217 

or  owners  of  moors  wish,  and  instead  of  being  1200 
pairs  left  to  breed  on  4500  acres,  which  is  Mr. 
Rimington  Wilson's  estimate  for  his  crack  moor  near 
Sheffield,  the  spring  stock  the  country  over  does  not 
average,  in  the  belief  of  the  writer,  more  than  250  pairs  on 
every  4500  acres,  and  in  this  estimate  he  does  not  include  the 
grass  hills,  the  floe  ground,  or  the  ptarmigan  tops,  or  deer 
forests. 

By  the  habits  of  the  grouse  the  owners  of  moors  are 
compelled,  therefore,  more  or  less  to  pool  their  breeding 
stocks.  Nothing  seems  likely  to  overcome  the  difficulty 
except  a  system  of  winter  feeding  in  snow-time,  and  this  is 
much  more  easily  discussed  than  accomplished.  Even  if  oat 
stacks  with  the  corn  in  the  straw,  and  more  oats  added  to  it 
to  avoid  unnecessary  carting  of  straw,  were  erected,  and 
protected  in  the  early  autumn,  in  various  parts  of  a  moor, 
these  to  be  of  any  use  would  require  to  be  visited  in  the 
very  worst  of  the  snow,  in  order  that  the  protection  might 
be  removed  and  the  grouse  might  start  to  scratch  about  for 
food.  But  there  are  many  parts  of  many  moors  where  an 
expedition  at  such  a  time  would  be  a  work  of  danger,  for 
many  a  life  has  been  lost  in  the  snowstorms  of  the 
Highlands. 

This  digression  into  winter  feeding  of  grouse  arose  out 
of  the  question  of  sheep  or  no  sheep.  Difficult  as  this  is  in 
Yorkshire,  Wales,  and  the  Lowlands  of  Scotland,  it  is  very 
much  more  complicated  in  the  Highlands,  where  sheep  have 
to  be  considered  not  alone  as  an  addition  to  grouse  moors,  but 
also  as  a  protection  to  the  deer  forests.  It  is  necessary  to 
the  forest  owners  that  they  should  not  lose  their  rentals  by 
the  movements  of  deer  to  grouse  ground  in  the  stalking 
season. 

Where  one  forest  adjoins  another,  exchange  is  no  robbery ; 
but  where  they  adjoin  sheep  ground  the  only  two  possible 
ways  of  preventing  a  loss  of  deer  are  wire  deer  fences  and 
the  presence  of  sheep  and  shepherds.  The  former  is  out  of 
favour,  and  will  probably  never   come   in   again.     It   converts 


2i8  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

forests  into  parks,  and  park  deer  have  no  sporting  value. 
Consequently,  only  the  sheep  and  the  shepherds  are  left. 
To  remove  them  anywhere  in  the  neighbourhood  of  forests 
is  automatically  to  stock  the  ground  with  deer.  This  may 
be  a  wise  or  an  unwise  policy  as  circumstances  arise,  but  it 
is  very  bad  for  the  established  forests  to  lose  their  best  beasts, 
which  take  years  to  grow.  Then  to  have  deer  forests  inter- 
spersed through  the  more  cultivated  districts  of  the  Highlands 
would  probably  lead  to  a  revolution,  or  at  least  to  the 
unauthorised  destruction  of  the  deer  when  they  attacked  the 
farmers'  crops. 

The  burning  of  the  heather  is  rarely  done  half  well  enough. 
It  is  very  expensive  in  districts  far  removed  from  considerable 
population.  There  is  so  much  delay  caused  by  waiting  for  the 
weather.  The  ideal  conditions  are  wet  ground  and  dry  air  and 
heather,  in  order  that  the  tops  of  the  plant  shall  be  thoroughly 
burned  and  the  roots  and  the  heather  seed  in  the  ground  not 
much  heated.  But  to  wait  for  such  ideal  conditions  would  be 
rarely  to  burn  at  all,  and  consequently  risks  are  taken,  but 
even  as  it  is,  not  nearly  enough  heather  is  burned.  On  some 
moors  the  author  has  visited  he  could  say  there  were 
icxx)  acres  of  heather  and  that  one  match  would  destroy 
it  all.  Where  such  enormous  beds  of  old  heather  do  exist,  it 
might  be  bolder  than  wise  to  apply  that  match  and  leave  the 
rest  to  chance.  But  it  always  runs  this  risk  even  when  grouse 
are  sitting  on  their  eggs.  There  are  not  many  nests  in  such 
ground,  nevertheless  it  is  a  pity  to  destroy  it  all,  for  this  old 
heather  is  the  most  valuable  when  snow  is  on  the  moor,  but 
the  mere  fact  of  burning  strips  through  it  greatly  increases 
this  value  as  well  as  every  other.  It  assists  the  snow  to  drift, 
which  in  covering  some  parts  deeply  leaves  the  other  bare. 
Shelter  and  food  is  what  the  grouse  most  want  in  the  storm, 
and  the  very  long  heather  supplies  both  to  a  very  great 
extent.  But  a  very  little  of  it  will  go  a  long  way  for  this 
purpose.  The  grouse  never  eat  it  at  other  times,  so  that  it 
is  all  left  for  winter  feeding.  These  long  old  heather  patches 
may  also  have  a  value  in    collecting   grouse  on  driving  days, 


RED  GROUSE  219 

but  they  have  none  for  dog  work;  for  grouse  will  not  resort 
to  them  unless  forced  to,  and  dogs  cannot  work  to  advantage 
in  them. 

Some  people  prefer  burning  in  small  patches  to  burning  in 
strips,  and  theoretically  the  former  can  be  defended  as  enabling 
more  birds  to  feed  when  out  of  sight  of  their  brethren  and 
enemies.  Nevertheless,  the  grouse  stocks  in  both  England 
and  Scotland  reached  their  apex  when  most  of,  if  not  all, 
the  burning  was  done  in  strips. 

A  too  heavy  stock  of  breeding  ewes,  in  contrast  to  as  heavy 
a  stock  of  feeding  or  fat  sheep,  is  said  to  destroy  heather, 
and  cause  grass  to  supplant  it.  Although  the  author  has 
several  times  had  cause  to  believe  this  to  be  quite  true,  he  has 
never  actually  seen  these  results. 

Another  cause  of  heather  destruction  has  come  under  his 
personal  observation,  and  is  very  serious  indeed  when  it  occurs. 
It  comes  in  the  form  of  a  small  beetle  which  some  ten  years 
ago  (then,  it  is  believed,  unnamed  by  science)  attacked  thousands 
of  acres  of  the  heather  (calluna),  but  would  not  touch  the  bell 
heather  {erica).  It  destroyed  and  bit  through  the  roots  of  the 
plants,  half  starved  the  sheep  in  consequence,  and  caused  the 
grouse  to  entirely  leave  some  of  the  moors  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Castle  Douglas.  The  only  stay  to  it  was  fire,  and  square 
miles  of  heather  were  consequently  burnt.  On  going  over  the 
ground  ten  years  afterwards,  it  was  observed  by  the  author  that 
only  a  very  occasional  root  of  heather  had  re-started,  so  that 
most  of  the  roots  must  have  been  killed,  and  there  was  evi- 
dently no  seed  in  the  ground.  But  all  the  bell  heather  plants 
re-started  to  grow  after  the  cremation  of  heather  and  beetles 
together.  Judging  by  the  destruction  wrought,  here  is  a  pest 
that,  under  favourable  circumstances  to  itself,  might  destroy 
all  the  heather  in  the  country,  and  incidentally  grouse  shooting 
as  well.     The  name  of  this  beetle  is  Lochvicea  suturalis. 

Draining  is  receiving  a  great  deal  of  attention,  and  well  is 
the  subject  worth  it.  The  worst  kind  of  land  on  any  moor  is 
what  is  called  "  floe  "  ground.  For  the  grouse  it  is  useless,  and 
nothing  and  nobody  seems  able  to  make  any  use  of  it.     It  is 


220  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

not  good  for  fish  in  the  winter  when  it  forms  a  lake,  nor  for 
grouse  in  the  summer  when  its  islets  of  stunted  heather  become 
dry  hillocks  surrounded  by  death-traps  for  little  grouse,  not  only 
because  of  their  inability  to  get  from  one  tussock  to  another 
without  swimming,  but  probably  also  because  of  the  millions 
of  insects  they  breed.  The  midge  flies  swarm  when  these 
places  are  wet,  and  possibly  carry  grouse  disease  in  their 
bites  from  diseased  grouse  to  the  healthy,  which  thereby 
become  diseased.  Probably  few  grouse  chicks  are  drowned 
in  such  places,  because  the  old  birds  instinctively  avoid  them 
for  nesting.  But  neither  they  nor  their  chicks  can  avoid  the 
midges,  and,  as  the  author  pointed  out  some  years  ago,  in  an 
article  in  the  Fortnightly  Review^  if  Dr.  Klein's  investigation 
of  the  disease  did  really  result  in  the  discovery  of  the  true 
cause  of  it,  namely  the  bacilli  he  cultivated  from  diseased 
grouse,  then  everything  else  he  did  pointed  to  the  conclusion 
that  only  by  direct  injection  under  the  skin  could  grouse  disease 
be  given  from  one  creature  to  another,  except  in  close  confine- 
ment, as  when  birds  healthy  and  diseased  were  confined 
together  under  one  cloth  and  in  a  room.  Since  the  writing 
of  that  article  the  Grouse  Committee  has  been  appointed,  and 
Mr.  Rimington  Wilson,  who  is  upon  it,  has  been  good  enough 
to  inform  the  author  that  one  of  the  points  being  investigated 
is  the  midge  theory. 

A  great  many  people  think  that  the  Committee  will  do  no 
good,  but  surely  in  the  present  state  of  science  it  is  only  a 
question  of  money.  Probably  critics  mean  that  if  the  bacilli 
of  the  disease  is  discovered,  or  re-discovered,  we  shall  be  no 
more  forward,  as  the  way  to  exterminate  them  or  their  possible 
hosts  will  still  have  to  be  inquired  into.  But  if  it  should  be 
discovered  that  the  midges  can  convey  the  disease,  and  that 
is  an  extremely  easy  thing  to  test,  then  we  need  not  bother 
about  the  life  history  of  the  interesting  bacilli,  but  start  and 
drain  the  breeding-places  of  their  intermediate  hosts — the  midge 
flies.  This  would  have  one  advantage  outside  all  consideration 
of  disease,  for  it  would  add  possibly  one-third  to  the  productive 
area  of  the  average  Highland  moor.     Probably  Mr.  Rimington 


RED  GROUSE  221 

Wilson's  Broomhead  moor  is  the  most  free  of  any  from  disease, 
and  it  is  generally  considered  also  about  the  driest  moor  in 
Yorkshire.  All  moors  are  quite  well  enough  stocked  with 
midges,  but  occasionally  in  hot  wet  weather  they  come  in 
clouds.  It  was  so  in  the  autumn  of  1873,  and  it  was  so  again 
in  the  autumn  before  the  last  outbreak  of  grouse  disease  in 
the  Highlands.  It  has  been  said  that  grouse  disease  is  always 
present,  and  breaks  out  when  the  grouse  are  weakly  and  food 
is  scarce.  These  may  be  contributory  circumstances,  but  that 
is  doubtful.  In  the  hard  winter  of  1895 — or  was  it  1896? — 
thousands  of  grouse  died  from  starvation,  but  none  from  disease. 
The  different  methods  of  killing  grouse  one  year  are 
supposed  to  have  a  great  deal  of  influence  on  the  breeding 
success  of  their  collateral  relations  the  next.  Apparently  this 
is  as  if  one  said  that  an  honest  tradesman  was  successful  and 
had  a  large  family  because  his  brother  the  highwayman  was 
hanged  instead  of  being  beheaded.  But  this  is  only  the 
superficial  side  of  the  question,  which  is  one  of  the  survival  of 
the  fittest.  It  is  said  with  a  good  deal  of  truth  that  to  drive 
the  grouse  is  an  automatic  selection  of  the  old  birds  for  the 
poulterer,  and  of  the  young  ones  for  breeding.  This  is  no 
doubt  quite  true,  but  at  the  same  time  grouse  driving  has  only 
been  followed  by  enormous  increases  of  stock  in  England,  and 
not  in  the  Highlands  of  Scotland.  The  apex  of  grouse  stock  in 
both  countries  was  reached  in  1872,  and  the  question  arises  why 
it  was  brought  about  by  driving  in  the  South  Country,  and,  on 
the  contrary,  practically  before  driving  had  made  any  head- 
way in  Scotland.  The  difference  of  effect  of  what  was  the 
same  system  in  both  can  probably  be  accounted  for  partly  in 
several  different  ways.  Both  "becking"  and  "  kiting  "  are  also 
automatic  selections  not  only  of  the  old  birds,  but  particularly 
of  the  old  cocks.  This  is  easy  enough  to  understand  in  regard 
to  "  becking,"  but  is  only  to  be  discovered  by  experience  in 
"  kiting."  It  appears  that  the  hens  are  not  often  shot  under  a 
kite,  and  the  reason  is  supposed  to  be  that  they  are  the  more 
timid,  and  make  off  before  the  kite  gets  near.  Both  these 
systems  were  practised  in  the   Highlands   before   driving  was 


222  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

introduced,  but  so  they  were  also  in  Yorkshire.  In  the 
Highlands  the  grouse  were  not  so  wild  but  that  the  shooter 
could  select  the  old  cock  of  a  brood  and  kill  him  over  the  dogs. 
In  Yorkshire  this  could  not  be  done ;  it  was  difficult  to  get  near 
the  youngest  broods,  to  say  nothing  of  the  old  cocks,  and  it  had 
been  difficult  for  half  a  century,  as  is  pointed  out  in  the  chapter 
headed  "  Grouse  that  lie  and  Grouse  that  fly."  Then,  when  these 
old  cocks  became  widowers  and  joined  others  similarly  afflicted, 
nothing  could  sufficiently  reduce  their  numbers,  and  it  was  not 
reduction  but  extermination  that  was  wanted.  Driving  in 
Yorkshire  accomplished  this,  for  there  are  no  rocky  "  tops " 
there  which  defy  the  drivers.  In  Scotland,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  wilder  the  old  cocks  grow  the  more  certainly  they  get 
upon  these  "  tops,"  and  the  safer  they  become  from  the  gun. 

When  driving  is  put  off  until  the  1st  of  September  or  there- 
abouts, as  it  mostly  is  in  Scotland,  the  driving  is  not  an  automatic 
selection  of  a  large  proportion  of  the  old  birds  ;  on  the  contrary, 
they  soon  get  up  on  the  "  tops  "  when  disturbance  often  occurs 
below,  and  they  leave  the  hens  and  the  broods  to  "  face  the 
music "  in  the  strath.  Thus,  on  the  rolling  moors  of  York- 
shire the  wilder  the  old  cocks  become  the  more  certainly  they 
get  driven  to  the  guns,  whereas  in  Scotland  the  more  certainly 
they  find  security  on  the  tops  that  never  yet  have  been  success- 
fully driven.  Before  peregrines  were  mostly  destroyed,  the  old 
cocks  dare  not  venture  on  those  covertless  tops.  From  these 
facts  it  can  be  gathered  that  it  is  not  the  driving  that  makes  all 
the  difference,  but  merely  the  killing  of  barren  and  old  birds,  and 
that  it  does  not  matter  how  this  is  accomplished  so  that  it  is 
done  thoroughly.  The  assumption  is  that  it  was  done 
thoroughly  in  Scotland  before  driving  began,  and  that  it  was 
impossible  to  do  it  in  PIngland,  where  the  birds  were  a 
fortnight  earlier  and  out  of  all  comparison  wilder.  At  any  rate, 
we  cannot  deny  that  before  grouse  butts  were  seen  on  one 
moor  in  fifty  in  Scotland,  the  grouse  stock  had  arrived  at  its 
highest  point;  that  between  10,000  and  11,000  grouse  had 
fallen  before  dogs  at  Glenbuchat  in  the  season  of  1872  ;  that  over 
7000  had  been  killed  in  a  month  at  Delnadamph,  in  Aberdeen- 


RED  GROUSE  223 

shire ;  and  also  that  220  brace  had  been  killed  to  one  gun  over 
dogs  at  Grandtully,  in  Perthshire,  in  a  single  day,  as  had  a 
similar  bag  a  couple  of  decades  before  by  Colonel  Campbell  of 
Monzie.  Only  once  since  has  as  large  a  bag  been  made  by  one 
gun  in  the  day,  and  that  was  twenty  years  ago.  Now  Scotch 
moors  do  not  equal  the  season's  bags  recorded  above,  nor  do 
men  make  as  big  single  gun-bags  over  dogs.  Only  once  in 
1905,  and  again  in  1906,  have  a  pair  of  guns  shooting  together 
equalled  100  brace  in  the  day. 

Another  question  arises  here  naturally.  It  is  :  Are  the  birds 
wilder  than  they  were  thirty-five  years  ago,  and  does  driving  at 
the  end  of  the  season  make  them  wilder  for  the  next  season  ? 
No  doubt  it  makes  the  old  cocks  wilder,  but  the  grouse  hen  is 
only  just  as  wild  as  her  brood  always.  Even  in  Yorkshire, 
before  the  brood  can  fly  the  grouse  hen  lies  to  be  trodden  up ; 
she  grows  wild  exactly  in  proportion  to  the  wildness  of  her 
chicks,  and  if  we  are  to  believe  the  biologists,  acquired  character 
is  not  transmitted  to  offspring.  The  author  believes  that  the 
principal  necessity  in  all  grouse  preservation  is  to  kill  a  large 
proportion  of  the  old  cocks  whether  they  have  had  broods  or 
not,  and  consequently  where  wildnesss  makes  them  secure 
they  should  not  be  made  wild  by  end  of  the  season  driving, 
either  with  or  without  a  preliminary  of  dog  work.  Had  the 
author  the  planning  and  management  of  Highland  moors  now 
as  he  had  years  ago,  he  would  get  rid  of  these  already-made- 
wild  old  cocks  by  driving  each  beat  the  day  before  dogging  it, 
but  with  drivers  just  so  far  apart  as  appeared  to  be  necessary 
to  make  sure  of  moving  the  old  cocks  but  not  the  broods, 
which  in  any  case  will  not  drive  well  as  early  as  the  first  week 
of  shooting.  The  clearance  of  the  objectionable  brigade,  which 
if  left  alone  the  first  bad  weather  will  send  to  the  "  tops,"  is  as 
necessary  for  a  driving  moor  as  for  a  dog  moor,  and  as  it  is  for  one 
which  has  previously  been  both.  The  greater  market  value  of 
the  dog  moors  in  the  Highlands  over  the  driving  moors  in  England 
(grouse  for  grouse)  makes  it  necessary  to  find  a  way  to  negative 
the  damage  done  by  making  the  old  cocks  wild.  But  the 
writer  is  not  sure  that  the  manner  of  going  up  to  dogs  is  not 


224  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

responsible  for  half  the  apparent  wildness  of  the  old  cocks.  It 
is  well  known  that  nothing  makes  any  birds  fly  so  quickly  as 
the  thought  that  they  are  seen.  Walking  straight  to  a  dog's 
point,  the  handler  in  the  middle  and  a  gun  on  each  side  of  him, 
convinces  any  self-respecting  old  cock  that  he  is  seen,  and  off 
he  goes.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  handler  advances  in  the  tracks 
of  one  of  the  shooters,  and  these  walk  up  40  yards  wide  of 
the  dog  on  either  side,  they  may  then  safely  pass  the  point  a 
considerable  distance,  and  if  it  is  necessary,  they  can,  with  the 
handler,  go  back  to  the  dog.  If  birds  have  allowed  them  to  pass 
thus,  they  will  also  allow  them  to  close  in  on  them,  for  they  will 
feel  themselves  surrounded.  The  old  cock  meantime  has  assuredly 
run  forward,  and  nine  times  out  of  ten  also  turned  to  right  or  left, 
and  the  chances  are  great  that  one  of  the  shooters  will  by 
these  tactics  just  head  him  off,  and  get  a  possible  shot  at  a 
bird  that  would  otherv/ise  have  stood  no  chance  of  being  killed. 

The  walking  wide,  in  first  driving,  is  practised  on  the 
Ruabon  moors  by  Mr.  Wynne  Corrie  in  order  to  secure  a 
greater  proportion  of  old  cocks  and  let  off  more  young  birds 
than  would  otherwise  be  the  case.  Mr.  Corrie  has  given  the 
author  some  very  valuable  information  upon  his  management 
of  the  Ruabon  Hills,  but  clearly  if  such  tactics  are  necessary 
on  a  moor  where  the  old  birds  cannot  by  wildness  take  to 
the  "tops"  and  save  themselves,  they  are  ten  times  more 
necessary  where  this  can  be  and  is  always  done.  In  Caithness- 
shire  the  old  cocks  can  be  killed  at  any  time  of  the  season  ; 
they  run  there ;  and  a  dog  that  rodes  well  and  fast  is  a  necessity. 
Mr.  W.  Arkwright,  of  pointer  celebrity,  makes  a  practice  of 
hunting  down  these  old  birds  until  he  makes  his  grouse  moor 
similar  to  that  paradise  regained  as  a  sign  of  which  seven 
women  were  to  cling  to  one  man.  In  practice  it  is  only  two 
hens  that  cling  to  one  cock,  and  this  upset  of  the  natural 
order  has  also  been  observed  on  the  Ruabon  Hills,  particularly 
in  1905  ;  and  the  keeper  there  tells  the  writer  that  when  it 
occurs  he  always  notices  that  it  is  followed  by  a  good  season. 
Here  are  two  opposite  methods  accomplishing  the  same  end,  and 
the  author  knows  enough  of  the  subject,  besides,  to  be  able  to 


RED  GROUSE  225 

say,  Make  your  grouse  polygamous  by  force  of  circumstances, 
and  each  hen  will  be  contented  with  half  the  ground  she  other- 
wise would  have  considered  hers  by  right  of  masculine  strife. 

In  considering  and  comparing  present-day  bags  with  those 
of  earlier  years,  it  is  necessary  to  avoid  comparing  now  well 
managed  moors  with  themselves  at  a  time  when  they  were 
badly  managed.  There  are  all  degrees  of  bad  management, 
and  what  we  have  to  do  is  to  go  to  the  moors  that  yielded 
the  best  at  the  various  dates  and  consider  what  was  the 
management  that  brought  this  about.  Some  of  the  best 
moors  in  Scotland  seem  to  have  been  very  poorly  managed 
in  the  great  year  of  1872.  There  is  Menzies  Castle  moor,  for 
instance,  which  lies  only  half  a  dozen  miles  or  so  from  the 
record-breaking  Grandtully  moor,  and  yet  in  1872,  when  the 
latter  surprised  all  grouse  shooters,  the  former  was  said  to  be 
very  badly  off  for  grouse,  and  the  birds  killed  over  dogs  were 
nearly  all  old  ones.  Nevertheless,  be  it  noted  that  the  bags 
of  old  birds  made  were  then  far  above  the  average  of  present- 
day  shootings,  which  not  only  shows  what  was  expected  by 
sportsmen  in  those  times,  but  also  how  the  old  birds  sat  to  dogs. 
There  were  some  peregrines  to  keep  them  in  the  long  heather. 

All  the  old  records  of  English  moors  point  to  the  capacity 
of  the  ground  for  carrying  grouse,  but  to  their  scarcity  never- 
theless. The  Scotch  moors,  on  the  contrary,  seem  to  have  had 
as  many  birds  in  the  first  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  as 
they  had  at  any  time.  Colonel  Thornton,  in  his  description 
of  his  Highland  tour,  spoke  of  big  packs  of  3CXX)  birds  as 
common  in  the  winter,  and  in  October  he  found  the  grouse 
lie  too  well  in  the  Duke  of  Gordon's  country,  whereas  shortly 
afterwards  on  a  12th  of  August  the  celebrated  Colonel  Hawker 
could  do  nothing  with  the  wild  Yorkshire  grouse,  where  the 
birds  were  also  particularly  scarce.  There  is  no  doubt  that  this 
scarcity  was  brought  about  by  Act  of  Parliament,  which  fixed 
the  opening  season  that  suited  Scotland,  and  by  a  fortnight's 
earlier  breeding  just  made  it  impossible  to  kill  the  old  cocks  in 
Yorkshire.  They,  in  turn,  would  not  breed  themselves  or  let 
others  do  so,  so  that  the  practice  in  Yorkshire  became  almost 
IS 


226 


THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 


precisely  what  it  is  now  in  those  deer  forests  where  they  desire  to 
exterminate  the  grouse,  and  do  it  by  leaving  them  entirely  alone. 

In  1849  there  was  driving  in  Yorkshire;  for  in  that  year,  on 
Sir  Spencer  Stanhope's  moor,  Durnford  Bridge,  there  were 
448  grouse  killed  in  one  day. 

The  following  bags  will  show  what  happened  in  Yorkshire  at  a 
glance,  but  nothing  of  this  sort  of  rapid  increase,  as  a  consequence 
of  driving  the  birds,  will  be  found  as  applying  to  Scotland  : — 

Grouse  killed  on  Blubberhouses  Moor — 2200  Acres 


Year. 

Total  bags 
in  braces. 

Year. 

Total  bags 
in  braces. 

Year. 

Total  bags 
in  braces. 

1829 
1830 
1831 
1832 
1833 

60 

77 

31 

82 

1834 
1835 
1836 

1837 
1838 

69i 
90 
12 
25 

42i 

1839 
1840 
1841 
1842 
1843 

2(>\ 

26 

35i 
21 

91 

Grouse  killed  on  Blubberhouses  and  Dallowgill 
Moors  in  Seasons  following  the  above 


{About  1862  a  little  driving 

began 

) 

Year's  bag                    Year's  bag 

Year.                                              at  Dallowgill.           at  Blubberhouses 

Braces.                           Braces. 

1865           .             .             .             .239 

1866 

691 

1870 

478 

1871 

2149 

1S72 

2417 

io^\ 

1S73 

208  .V 

disease. 

1874 

177^ 

disease. 

1875 

508 

no  record 

1876 

1576 

725 

1877 

i.^45i 

781 

1878 

1892 

704 

1879 

781 

241 

1880 

1015^ 

no  record. 

1881 

945 

388^ 

1882 

1551 

770 

1883 

2948i 

346i 

1884 

2519 

622 

1885 

i620i 

277 

1886 

I3I2i 

646 

1887 

2I25i 

no  record. 

1888 

25014 

919 

RED  GROUSE  227 

The  last  figure  was  given  to  the  author  by  Lord  Walsingham 
about  the  time  the  bag  of  1070  grouse  made  in  the  day  by 
his  gun  was  discussed,  and  might  possibly  have  been  added 
to  later  in  the  season. 

Two  points  are  likely  to  arise  in  an  examination  of  the 
bags.  First,  was  it  that  the  birds  were  not  upon  the  Yorkshire 
moors,  or  only  that  they  could  not  be  killed,  that  made  the 
season's  bags  so  poor  prior  to  driving  ? 

The  other  point  is  :  Do  big  day's  bags  point  to  great  stocks 
of  game  on  the  moors ;  and  arising  out  of  that,  do  great  bags 
help  to  improve  the  stock  ? 

The  answers,  from  the  bags  to  be  mentioned,  will  be  found 
to  be  that  in  the  early  days  the  birds  were  not  on  the  York- 
shire hills,  and  if  they  had  been  there  they  could  have  been 
killed  in  numbers,  except  the  wild  old  cocks.  The  proof  is  to  be 
found  in  the  facts  that,  as  lately  as  1872,  there  were  1099  brace 
of  grouse  killed  in  a  day  on  Bowes  moor  over  dogs,  and 
that  the  day  after  Lord  Walsingham  made  his  great  one-gun 
bag  at  Blubberhouses  by  driving,  he  walked  up  and  shot  in 
half  a  day  26  brace,  or  more  than  the  whole  moor  had  yielded 
in  many  a  previous  anti-driving  season.  It  will  be  found,  also, 
that  big  day's  bags  do  not  necessarily  point  to  big  stocks  of 
grouse,  since,  at  least  twice,  one  gun  has  in  one  day  taken 
more  than  half  the  season's  total  bag  off  a  moor.  But  that 
very  big  driving  days  on  a  small  moor  are  better  than  a 
constant  worry  by  smaller  drivings  of  the  grouse  is  almost  too 
obvious  to  name. 

Lord  Walsingham  killed  to  his  own  gun  in  one  day  of  1872 
421  brace  of  grouse  when  the  season's  bag  was  807 1-  brace; 
and  in  1888,  after  a  very  bad  breeding  season,  he  killed 
535  brace  to  his  own  gun  in  the  day,  and  there  were  919  brace 
bagged  in  that  season.  Similar  proof  of  the  skill  of  drivers 
and  shooters  when  the  stocks  of  game  were  but  moderate  are 
to  be  had  elsewhere.  The  late  Sir  Fred  Milbank's  best  year 
at  Wemmergill  was  in  1872,  when  he  got  17,074  grouse,  and 
his  best  bag  was  2070  grouse.  Lord  Westbury,  his  successor 
on  that  moor,  had  a  best  day  of  about  the  same  number,  but 


228  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

his  best  year  gave  but  9797  grouse.  Mr.  R.  Rimington  Wilson 
killed  2743  birds  in  the  day  in  1904,  but  the  season  was  not 
perhaps  as  good  as  that  of  1905,  when  only  1744  grouse  were 
shot  on  the  best  day,  when  Mr.  Rimington  Wilson  was  good 
enough  to  inform  the  author  that  the  season  was  above  the 
average,  and  that  the  direction  of  the  wind  makes  all  the 
difference.  In  1906,  the  day,  chosen  months  ahead,  happened 
to  be  one  of  those  heat  record-breaking  ones  that  caused  the 
grouse  to  refuse  to  fly  more  than  once,  and  only  about  1320 
grouse  were  killed  on  the  first  day,  which,  however  com- 
paratively bad  there,  would  be  absolutely  splendid  as  times 
go  elsewhere. 

Again,  in  1905,  Mr.  Wynne  Corrie  had  his  record  season, 
but  his  big  days  were  larger  in  the  previous  season.  In  1904 
they  were  760I  and  781  brace  respectively,  and  in  1905  there 
were  63  8|  brace  shot  on  the  best  day.  This  is  not  as  remark- 
able as  the  fact  that  in  1901  there  were  killed  there  3341  brace, 
before  big  bags  were  started;  and  there  were  but  2103  brace 
killed  in  the  year  of  the  record  bag. 

The  apex  of  grouse  stock  having  been  reached  in  Yorkshire 
in  1872,  within  a  decade  of  the  general  beginning  of  driving,  it 
was  felt  that  the  way  to  enormous  stocks  was  discovered,  and 
that  these  stocks  were  worth  every  attention  and  large  capital 
outlay  in  the  improvement  of  moorlands,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact 
it  is  difficult  to  find  that  all  the  improvement  since  has  done 
any  good  to  the  head  of  game.  If  it  has,  it  can  only  be  dis- 
covered over  periods  of  years,  and  not  by  comparing  any  one 
year  with  the  results  obtained  in  1871  and  1872.  The  period 
of  years  is  the  better  test  if  it  can  be  fairly  applied,  but  results 
come  out  differently  altogether  in  accordance  with  the  arbitrary 
selection  of  dates  to  begin  and  end  these  periods. 

It  has  already  been  mentioned  how  wonderfully  grouse  have 
done  in  the  absence  of  one  of  these  improvements,  namely  the 
removal  of  sheep  on  the  Ruabon  Hills,  and  sheep  are  just  as 
plentiful  at  Askrigg,  in  Yorkshire,  where  nevertheless  Mr,  Vyner 
has  killed  on  a  moor  of  2000  acres,  in  1894,  2775  grouse;  in 
1897,  2959  grouse;  in   1898  there  was  a  total  of  2095  grouse; 


RED  GROUSE  229 

in  1 90 1  there  were  shot  2686  grouse ;  and  in  1902  there  were 
2898  grouse  bagged. 

Mr.  Wynne  Corrie  has  improved  the  best  season's  bag  at 
Ruabon  Hills  by  about  1000  brace,  or  one-third  more  than  the 
previous  best.  He  has  given  the  author  four  reasons  to  which 
he  attributes  the  improvement,  and  as  his  is  nearly  the  only 
South  Country  grouse  moor  that  at  once  shows  a  great  stock 
and  also  a  great  improvement  over  season's  bags  of  four  decades 
ago,  they  are  here  stated : — 

1.  Leaving  as  large  a  head  of  breeding  birds  as  possible. 

2.  Improvement  of  the  heather. 

3.  Sunk  butts. 

4.  Not  shooting  any  grouse  over  dogs. 

Probably  it  will  be  gathered  from  the  records  of  bags  made 
that  the  system  of  only  driving,  in  Yorkshire,  has  not  increased 
the  birds  since  1872,  and  that  dog  work  and  driving  afterwards 
has  also  had  the  same  stagnant  or  retarding  effect  in  Scotland, 
where  also  driving  alone  has  made  no  improvement  either, 
that  when  it  could  be  said  of  moors  that  they  produced  as 
well  as  their  neighbours,  of  similar  area  and  conditions,  under 
previous  management.  This  is  all  very  disappointing  to  those 
who  give  time  and  money  to  moor  improvement,  and  sacrifice 
their  shooting  several  years  in  order  to  get  up  the  head  of  game. 
It  is  not  pleasant  to  have  to  mention  these  partial  failures,  but 
it  is  felt  that  if  we  do  not  look  facts  in  the  face  as  they  are, 
there  is  little  chance  of  improvement.  There  is,  in  fact,  a  some- 
thing besides  disease  that  keeps  the  grouse  stock  below  a  certain 
point  in  the  best  of  years,  and,  as  Allan  Brown  says,  causes  a 
little  grouse  to  require  as  much  land  to  itself  as  a  cow. 

These  bags  are  not  quoted,  then,  merely  because  they  are 
records,  but  because  they  teach  that  there  is  something  never  yet 
found  out  that  is  infinitely  more  important  to  discover  than  the 
bacilli  of  the  grouse  disease.  It  must  be  more  potent  than 
disease  in  its  effects  of  keeping  the  grouse  stock  down.  For 
their  numbers  from  a  stock-breeder's  point  of  view  seem  utterly 
absurd.  That  vegetable-feeding  birds  weighing  under  2  lbs. 
should   want    as    much    vegetation    to    themselves    as    sheep 


230  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

weighing  50  lbs.  is  the  point,  and  there  must  be  a  reason  for  it, 
although  it  has  never  yet  been  discovered  or  even  searched  for, 
as  far  as  is  known  to  the  author.  But  before  dealing  with  that 
point  it  is  necessary  to  show  the  present  stagnation  under  every 
system. 

At  that  period  when  Yorkshire  grouse  were  only  remarkable 
for  their  scarcity,  Colonel  Campbell  of  Monzie  killed  184^  brace  in 
1843  in  a  day,  191  brace  in  1846,  and  another  bag  of  222|  brace 
with  no  date  mentioned.  On  the  Menzies  Castle  moor,  before 
mentioned,  it  was  said  the  1872  birds  were  mostly  old  and 
bred  badly,  yet  five  shooters  obtained  the  following  bags  in 
the  three  first  days,  namely,  205,  117,  and  168  brace ;  in  1905,  an 
excellent  breeding  season,  the  bags  were  on  the  same  moor 
115  and  ^6  brace.  Then  at  Grandtully,  close  by,  the  1872  season 
yielded  220  brace  to  the  single  gun  of  the  Maharajah  Duleep 
Singh  in  a  day,  and  in  the  first  day  of  1906  four  guns  got 
35  brace.  There  were  7000  grouse  killed  at  Delnadamph,  mostly 
by  driving,  in  1872,  when,  elsewhere,  there  were  no  butts,  as  at 
Glenbuchat,  where  they  killed  nevertheless  10,600  grouse  over 
dogs.  Nothing  like  the  above  is  done  over  dogs  now,  the 
nearest  approach  to  it  being  at  Sir  John  Gladstone's  moors, 
where  upon  occasion  within  the  decade  about  4000  grouse  have 
been  killed  over  dogs,  and  6000  later  by  driving. 

Unquestionably  the  best  average  in  England  has  been  kept 
up  at  Broomhead,  the  season's  bags  of  which  have  never  been 
published,  but  the  two  best  days  in  each  season  have  been,  and 
as  records  alone  they  are  of  great  interest,  even  if  nothing  but 
facts  could  be  deduced  from  them  (see  table  on  opposite  page). 

Bags  made  on  Bowes  subscription  moor  on  12th  August  1872 
were  for  30  shooters  over  dogs  as  follows: — 85 J,  65 J,  56^,  54>49> 
45,  44^,  43,  50,  4oi-,  4i|,  4i|,  36,  35,  35-1,  35!  35,  33,  33,  32,  32, 
292 >  23 1,  2\\,  23,  21,  16,  27 J,  8,  5  J  brace.     Total,  1099  brace. 

This  remarkable  bag  on  a  1 2,000  acre  moor  establishes  many 
things,  one  of  which  is  that  the  grouse  in  Yorkshire  could  have 
been  killed  in  quantities  at  any  time  had  tliere  been  enough 
guns,  so  that  the  broods  after  being  flushed  by  one  shooter  were 
quickly  found  by  another,  and  given  no  time  to  collect  after 


RED  GROUSE 


231 


being  scattered.  But  the  wildness  of  the  grouse  on  this  moor  is 
shown  by  the  top  scorer  getting  only  about  half  the  bag  that 
some  shooters  obtained  on  the  Scotch  moors  of  the  time.  For 
instance,  at  Glenquoich  Lodge,  near  Dunkeld,  there  were  killed 
124I,  1 14,  and  88|  brace  by  three  guns  on  the  Twelfth ;  thus  the 
three  guns  got  327  brace  in  the  day,  and  this  kind  of  bag  was 
by  no  means  unusual.  In  Yorkshire  there  were  numerous  bags 
of  1000  brace,  and  over,  made  that  season.  They  occurred  at 
Wemmergill,  Dallowgill,  Broomhead,  Bowes,  and  High  Force 
(probably)  ;  at  any  rate,  at  the  latter  place,  there  were  in  19  days 
driving  15,484  grouse  killed,  and  at  Wemmergill  adjoining  there 
were  17,074  grouse  shot  for  the  season. 

Writing  in  1888,  Lord  Walsingham  said  he  thought  that  the 
great  increase  of  grouse  was  to  be  attributed  to  the  burning  of  the 
heather  in  Yorkshire  during  the  previous  twenty-five  years.     But 


Bags  made  at  Broomhead 


Date. 

Guns. 

Brace  in  the 
day. 

Brace  in  the  best 
two  days. 

Sept.  6,  1872  . 

13 

1313 

,,   3.  1890 

8 

819 

„   9,  1891 

8 

630 

...  . 

Aug.  30,  1893 
Sept.  I,  ,, 

9 
9 

1324 
801I 

2I2Si 

Aug.  29,  1894 
>.  31,  ,, 

9 
9 

1007 
687 

} 

1694 

Sept.  4,  1895 

8 

624 

Aug.  26,  1896 

9 

1090 

>,  25,  1897 

9 

1006 

,,  24,  1898 

9 

1103! 

,,  30,  1899 

9 

1013 

,,  29,  1900 

9 

586 

Sept.  4,  1901 
„  25,  „ 

9 
9 

712 
735 

} 

1447 

Aug.  27,  1902 
„  29,  „ 

9 
9 

693 
257 

} 

950 

,,  26,  1903 
„     28,  ,, 

9 
9 

703i 

484^ 

} 

I188 

„  24,  1904 
,,  26,  „ 

9 
9 

i37ii 
405* 

} 

1777 

,,  30,  1905  • 

Sept.  I,  ,, 

9 
9 

872 
604 

} 

1476 

1906  . 

66o(rough 

ly) 

232 


THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 


no  moors  the  author  saw  in  Yorkshire  about  that  time  could 
bear  comparison  for  regular  burning  with  the  moor  of  Dunbeath, 
in  Caithness,  where  the  strips  were  as  regular  and  as  well 
defined  as  the  different  crops  in  a  market  garden ;  and  again, 
about  1875,  the  author  went  over  Bowes  moor  to  inspect  for  a 
possible  purchaser,  and  he  never  saw  any  heather  so  badly 
neglected  for  want  of  burning.  Although  there  were  very  few 
grouse  there  at  that  time,  this  was  obviously  due  to  the  disease, 
for  there  had  been  any  number  of  them  three  seasons  before. 

Driving  the  grouse  at  Moy  Hall  moors  was  started  in  a 
partial  manner,  without  butts,  in  1869,  and  the  driving  done 
between  then  and  1872  was  limited  to  the  birds  round  the  corn- 
fields, and  could  have  had  no  effect  on  the  stock. 


In  1 87 1  the  bag  was   . 
»  1872        „       „ 


2836  grouse. 
3002 


Between  1876  and  1879  no  driving  was  done  there,  but  in 
1879  there  were  103  grouse  killed  in  six  drives  on  the  ist  of 
September. 

In  that  year  the  kill  was  5172  grouse,  when  the  bag  was 
assisted  by  driving,  but  the  preservation  had  not  been  so 
assisted. 

In  1888  there  were  killed  5822  grouse  by  means  of  dogs 
first  and  driving  afterwards,  and  in  the  next  season,  which  was 
a  bad  one,  dogs  were  used  for  the  last  time. 

In  1 89 1  there  were  shot 
In  1892  the  bag  was    . 
In  1893  there  were  killed     . 
In  1894  the  season  produced 
In  1895  the  total  fell  to 
In  1896  it  fell  lower,  to 
In  1897  it  touched  lower,  to 
In  1898  it  began  to  rise  to  . 
In  1899  there  were  shot 
In  1900  the  bag  was    . 
In  1901  the  apex  was. 


3612  i 

arouse 

3513 

4480 

4563 

25II 

1402 

II3I 

1943 

3416 

6092 

7127 

RED  GROUSE  233 

Since  that  year  the  season's  bags  have  not  been  published, 
and  it  is  believed  that  they  fell  off  very  much  until  1905,  when 
there  was  a  good  recovery,  but  not  a  record,  and  disappointment 
occurred  again  in  1906. 

From  these  figures  we  are  not  able  to  gather  that  driving 
and  no  dog  work  has  acted  as  a  means  of  preservation  and  an 
increase  of  the  stock,  but  that  it  has  enabled  the  grouse  to  be 
killed  when  they  were  there,  as  they  undoubtedly  were  in  1879, 
when  the  driving  was  so  little  understood  that  it  did  not 
materially  assist  the  bags  for  the  season,  as  may  be  gathered 
from  the  bag  for  the  day  quoted  above.  Nothing  can  be 
gathered  from  these  bags  to  suggest  that  anything  like  a  remedy 
for  the  stagnation  spoken  of  has  been  discovered,  and  we  hope 
in  vain,  year  by  year,  to  see  that  advance  of  from  4CX)  to  800 
per  cent,  spoken  of  by  Lord  Walsingham,  eighteen  years  ago,  in 
regard  to  Yorkshire. 

It  has  been  already  pointed  out  that  by  draining  a  moor  one 
may  often  add  a  third  to  its  heather-bearing  land,  and  also  that 
by  removing  a  sheep  to  the  acre  one  conserves  about  ten  times 
the  heather  food  a  grouse  eats.  Yet  neither  of  these  methods 
has  made  very  much  difference  anywhere.  Both  have  done 
something  to  add  to  the  stock  in  places,  and  both  have  also 
been  disappointing  in  other  places.  Surely  there  must  be  some 
reason  that  has  not  only  never  been  discovered,  but  has  not 
even  been  looked  for.  It  has  been  shown  that  were  it  only  a 
question  of  heather  food,  the  removal  of  sheep,  where  they  are 
one  to  an  acre,  would  multiply  the  grouse  capacity  of  the  moors 
by  ten  times,  and  the  author  believes  that  the  majority  of  moors 
have  on  them,  even  when  they  carry  sheep,  ten  times  the 
heather  the  grouse  require.  If  the  former,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  latter,  is  approximately  true,  then  there  must  be  something 
besides  heather  the  grouse  require,  and  the  absence  of  which,  in 
quantities,  prevents  their  increase  beyond  two  to  an  acre  even 
on  the  most  favourable  moors. 

There  is  no  doubt  from  the  above  facts  that  there  is  some 
such  want,  but  what  it  is  the  author  can  only  speculate  upon. 
It  appears  likely  that  what  is  wanted  by  all  young  grouse,  as  by 


234  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

all  young  animals  of  other  kinds,  is  proteid.  Young  birds  of 
all  kinds  take  it  in  the  form  of  insects,  or  artificial  substitutes. 
That  little  grouse  begin  at  once  to  eat  heather  is  true,  but  it 
has  never  been  proved  that  they  can  be  reared  on  heather  and 
nothing  else.  On  the  other  hand,  it  has  been  proved  that  they 
can  be  reared  without  heather,  provided  they  get  plenty  of 
insect  food.  They  appear  to  be  almost  the  easiest  of  game 
birds  to  rear,  provided  they  have  leave  to  help  themselves  to 
the  insects  of  the  fields,  or  are  supplied  with  crissel  and  ants' 
eggs  by  hand.  For  these  reasons  the  author  has  arrived  at 
the  opinion  that,  provided  the  young  grouse  could  be  supplied 
with  proteid  (insects)  for  the  first  three  weeks  of  life,  the 
heather  is  sufficient  to  support  ten  times  the  numbers  found 
upon  the  moors  in  most  cases.  Of  course  this  could  only  be 
done  by  hand  rearing  of  the  birds.  But  as  the  grouse  seem  to 
lay  more  readily  in  confinement  than  partridges,  and  as  these 
latter  most  particular  birds  have,  by  the  French  system,  been 
doubled  and  doubled  again,  there  seems  to  be  no  reason  why 
grouse  should  not  be  increased  in  the  same  way. 

It  may  be  said  that  disease  would  stop  anything  of  the  kind, 
but  those  who  advocate  the  increase  of  grouse  to  shoot  by  the 
decrease  of  the  parent  stock  have,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  had  their 
innings.  It  can  be  proved  that  where  breeding  grouse  are  kept 
up  to  the  highest  point,  there  also  they  are  the  most  healthy. 

The  author  has  doubts  whether  it  is  desirable  to  increase 
the  hand  rearing  of  game ;  but  in  a  book  on  shooting  and  game 
preservation  the  ethics  of  sport  are  not  practical  if  they  limit 
production  in  any  way. 

The  red  grouse  {Lagopus  scoticus)  may  be  shot  from  the 
morning  of  the  12th  of  August  to  the  evening  of  the  loth  of 
December.  Heather  burning  is  legal  at  all  times  in  England, 
but  only  from  1st  of  November  to  loth  of  April  in  Scotland, 
which  is  another  means  by  which  an  Act  of  Parliament  has 
damaged  the  interests  of  the  grouse  shooter,  since  it  generally 
happens  that  not  enough  heather  burning  can  be  done  in  the 
winter  months,  and  September  and  October  are  quite  as 
necessary  burning  months  as  March  itself 


METHODS  OF  SHOOTING  THE  RED 
GROUSE 

WHETHER  we  ask  the  driver  of  game  or  the  dog  man 
does  not  matter,  all  are  agreed  that  the  red  grouse 
is  the  most  sporting  bird  we  have.  It  is  only  necessary  to  see 
how  artfully  grouse  butts  are  placed,  in  order  to  make  the 
shooting  as  easy  as  possible,  to  know  that  the  grouse's  flight 
is  a  match  for  the  shooter.  Successful  drivings,  or  big  bags  in 
the  day,  which  is  the  same  thing,  require  every  assistance  to 
be  given  to  the  gunner,  for  in  grouse  shooting  height  is  an 
assistance  to  him,  although  it  is  the  reverse  in  pheasant  shooting. 
The  reason  is  that  the  grouse  usually  flies  too  low  for  a  clear 
sight  of  it  against  the  sky,  and  also  low  enough  to  make 
shooting  dangerous  when  the  birds  cross  the  line  of  the  butts. 
The  time  has  not  yet  come  with  grouse,  as  it  has  with  pheasants 
to  a  great  extent,  when  beats  are  planned  to  make  the  shooting 
as  difficult  as  possible.  This  is  not  wholly  true  of  pheasants 
either,  because  no  one  for  the  sake  of  increased  difficulty  places 
shooters  amongst  trees,  and  especially  fir  trees,  and  nobody  for 
the  added  difficulty  shoots  his  pheasants  when  the  leaf  is  still 
on.  In  the  same  way,  a  grouse  driver  does  not  put  his  butts 
where  grouse  cannot  be  seen  approaching,  but  selects  a  position 
40  or  more  yards  behind  a  slight  rise  in  the  ground,  in  order 
that  the  guns  may  sec  the  game  before  it  is  within  range,  but 
not  so  much  before  that  the  sight  of  the  gunners  in  the  butts 
will  turn  the  grouse.  So,  then,  to  make  big  bags,  every  ad- 
vantage has  to  be  taken  to  drive  the  grouse  as  easily  for  the 
guns  as  can  be  done,  and  besides  this  the  "  crack "  gunners 
excel  in  being  best  able  to  select  the  easiest,  or  perhaps  it  would 

235 


236  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

be  better  to  say  the  possible  birds.  They  neither  lose  time  in 
trying  to  get  on  to  birds  when  there  is  not  time  to  succeed,  or 
in  shooting  at  others  so  far  off  as  to  be  at  wounding  distances. 

The  red  grouse  also  puts  the  shooter  over  dogs  to  the  test. 
Even  at  the  beginning  of  the  season  the  direct  walk  up  with 
the  dog  will  generally  result  in  the  old  cock  getting  off  unshot 
at.  But  with  two  gunners  who  walk  wide  of  the  dog,  the 
chances  are  that  one  of  them  will  get  a  fair  shot  at  the  old 
cock,  which  invariably  runs  away,  and  leaves  his  wife  and 
children  to  learn  wisdom  by  experience  and  his  example. 
Later  on  it  may  be  necessary  to  hunt  the  dogs  down  wind, 
and  this  proceeding  nearly  always  results  in  making  birds  lie 
much  better  than  they  otherwise  would ;  for  the  grouse  are 
found  by  the  dog  when  the  latter  is  to  leeward,  and  the  guns  by 
walking  down  wind  to  the  point  complete  the  surrounding  move- 
ment. It  may  be  said  that  unless  grouse  have  their  heads  up 
(when  they  are  only  fit  for  driving)  they  always  are  approachable 
by  guns,  provided  the  latter  set  about  it  the  right  way,  and  have 
dogs  good  enough  to  hunt  down  wind  well  and  without  flushing 
the  game.  The  qualities  required  in  the  dog  cover  a  very  wide 
range — a  very  long  and  certain  nose,  and  an  absence  of  drawing 
up  to  game  to  make  sure  of  it ;  that  is,  an  absence  of  hesitation 
in  pointing.  Then  the  degree  of  accuracy  of  shooting  that  is 
enough  in  driving  with  cylinder  guns  at  25  to  30  yards  range  is 
not  more  than  half  enough  with  a  full  choke  bore  at  50  yards 
range. 

There  is  ample  scope  for  improvement  always  in  grouse 
shooting,  and  the  author  has  never  heard  of  the  gunner  who  is 
always  satisfied  with  his  efforts,  either  when  shooting  driven 
game  or  when  shooting  grouse  over  dogs.  Those  who  talk  of 
the  "  battue  "  and  "  slaughter "  in  the  same  breath  have  never 
tried,  and  those  drivers  of  game  who  talk  of  shooting  over  dogs 
as  too  easy  for  their  skill  find  out  their  own  weak  spots  when 
they  try  it. 

The  proper  driving  of  grouse  to  the  guns  is  the  result  of 
local  education  based  on  sound  broad  principles.  The  former 
it  is  obviously  not  possible  to  deal  with,  and  the  latter  have 


METHODS  OF  SHOOTING  THE  RED  GROUSE     237 

already  been  admirably  stated  elsewhere,  except  for  this  :  it  has 
been  assumed  that  grouse  can  be  driven  everywhere,  but  this 
is  very  far  from  correct.  They  certainly  cannot  be  driven  where 
they  will  lie  well  to  dogs  all  the  season.  Moreover,  they  cannot 
be  satisfactorily  driven  when  they  resort  to  the  "  tops "  of  the 
ranges  of  hills  or  mountains  in  the  Highlands,  where  a  short 
flight  puts  them  500  feet  over  the  "flankers'"  heads.  These 
flag-men  then  have  no  more  effect  on  the  direction  of  the  flight 
of  the  grouse  than  the  other  "  insects "  in  the  heather  have, 
for  the  drivers  resemble  insects  when  crawling  along  so  far 
below. 

To  state  the  principle  of  grouse  driving  shortly  is  possibly 
difficult  It  is  based  upon  a  series  of  incidents  in  the  perceptions 
of  the  birds,  which  are  influenced  by  sight  alone,  and  not  by 
hearing  or  smelling.  They  should  first  see  a  driver  far  off  in 
the  direction  it  is  most  wished  they  should  avoid  flying  to.  If 
they  take  wing  at  this  first  sight,  then  the  act  of  rising  should 
bring  them  into  sight  of  a  line  of  men  covering  every  point  that 
they  are  not  desired  to  make  for.  Local  conditions  may  alter 
all  this,  as  it  may  be  that  grouse  have  a  constant  flight,  and 
take  it  however  they  are  flushed,  but  generally  they  have  not. 
The  means  stated  generally  resolves  itself  into  a  quarter-circle 
of  beaters  on  the  most  down-wind  side  of  a  cross-wind  beat, 
attached  to  a  straight  line  of  beaters  in  the  centre  and  upon  the 
most  up-wind  side  of  the  beat,  so  that  the  men  farthest  down 
wind  are  the  most  advanced.  On  the  other  hand,  when  the 
drive  is  direct  to  the  guns  with  a  full  wind,  the  line  of  beaters 
will  have  two  horns  each  well  advanced  on  either  side,  unless 
local  conditions  make  one  side  dangerous  and  the  other  not  so. 
Generally  they  do.  The  desired  flight  may  or  may  not  be  at 
first  in  the  direction  of  the  line  of  shooters.  The  first  object 
may  be  concentration,  either  in  the  air  or  on  the  ground.  In  the 
first  case,  the  grouse  having  been  got  to  go  towards  a  concentra- 
tion point  in  their  flight,  are  gradually  turned  to  the  guns  by 
men  who  are  set  at  danger  points,  and  either  show  themselves 
to  or  are  seen  by  the  grouse  at  that  exact  proximity  that  the 
sight  of  the  unexpected  will  have  most  effect  in  turning  them. 


238  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  when  flag-men  are  seen  at  a  long 
distance  ahead  of  them,  the  grouse  may  or  may  not  swerve  in 
their  flight,  but  seen  suddenly  when  so  near  as  to  leave  just 
more  than  enough  time  for  turning  before  the  impetus  has 
carried  them  over  the  head  of  the  man  with  the  flag,  they  turn 
off  instead  of  merely  swerving.  Consequently,  the  men  who 
are  set  to  turn  grouse  are  a  law  to  themselves.  They  show 
themselves  at  the  psychological  moment,  according  to  the  speed 
of  the  grouse.  Only  a  very  little  is  required  to  turn  a  slow 
up-wind  pack  of  grouse,  whereas  very  much  will  sometimes  not 
turn  fast  down-wind  birds.  This  turning  the  birds  from  the 
point  towards  which  they  are  driven  is  often  necessary.  Thus 
grouse  may  not  be  willing  to  drive  in  another  direction,  or  to 
drive  otherwise  might  be  to  lose  the  birds  for  the  day,  and 
to  have  the  butts  where  the  turn  in  the  flight  occurs  might  be  to 
allow  the  majority  to  go  straight  on  into  some  other  moor, 
not  to  be  seen  again  that  day,  if  ever. 

When  birds  are,  or  can  be,  collected  or  concentrated  upon 
the  ground,  it  is  much  more  simple.  It  is  difficult  then  to  make 
everything  go  right,  but  it  does  not  require  quite  the  Napoleon 
of  tactics  that  the  other  method  does.  Obviously  the  con- 
centration of  grouse  upon  the  ground  implies  a  larger  beat 
than  in  the  other  case — one  in  which  the  natural  flight  of  the 
grouse  will  induce  them  to  settle  before  they  get  within  sight 
of  the  butts.  This  concentration  and  settlement  of  the  birds 
enables  a  new  formation  of  drivers  to  be  made,  for  the  collection 
of  the  birds  may  have  caused  driving  right  away  from  the  butts 
in  the  first  instance,  and  in  most  cases  not  directly  towards 
them.  The  object  of  all  driving  is  not  only  to  put  as  many 
grouse  as  possible  within  range  of  the  guns,  but  the  more 
important  part  is  that  of  keeping  on  the  moor  all  those  grouse 
that  go  by  the  butts,  to  be  used  again  and  again  the  same  day. 

Another  way  of  driving  grouse  is  based  upon  the  same 
principle,  except  that  the  driving  is  simple,  because  the  beats 
are  short  and  direct  to  the  guns.  In  this  case  natural  common 
sense  is  much  more  effective  than  in  the  other  two,  which  must 
depend    upon    local    knowledge   almost   entirely.     But   in   all 


METHODS  OF  SHOOTING  THE  RED  GROUSE    239 

cases  men  to  turn  the  grouse  if  they  try  to  break  out  have  to 
be  employed,  and  they  are  of  no  use  unless  they  perfectly 
understand  what  the  grouse  will  do  under  every  circumstance 
that  may  arise.  Some  of  these  men  are  so  clever  that  when 
shooters  in  the  butts  are  watching  the  operations  and  believe 
the  big  pack  has  broken  out,  they  suddenly  see  it  turn  and 
head  straight  to  them.  Then  the  gunners  recognise  that  the 
"pointsman,"  if  the  simile  is  admissible,  knows  his  business 
better  than  they  know  it ;  for  it  is  clear  from  their  anxiety  that 
they  in  a  similar  situation  would  have  shown  themselves  too 
soon,  and  that  the  flag-man  has  timed  the  occasion  as  accurately 
as  a  railway  pointsman  switches  a  train  on  to  another  line  of 
metals.  The  short  driving  system  may  be  exemplified  by 
Lord  Walsingham's  great  performance,  when  he  got  1070  grouse 
to  his  own  gun  in  the  day  in  20  short  drives  on  a  2200  acre 
moor.  The  long  drive  system  may  be  exemplified  by  the  first 
drive  in  the  day  at  Mr.  Rimington  Wilson's  Broomhead  moor, 
where  6  drives  in  the  day  is  the  outside  limit. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  difference  of  opinion  upon  the 
best  form  of  grouse  butt,  and  some  difference  upon  the  best 
distances  apart  for  them.  But  these  are  not  abstract  questions, 
although  in  conversation  and  books  they  are  treated  as  if  they 
were.  Much  depends  upon  the  manner  of  driving.  When  the 
birds  are  brought  from  a  distance  and  concentrated,  it  is  clear 
that  they  cannot  have  got  used  to  the  sight  of  the  butts  on  the 
ground  to  which  they  are  forced.  On  the  other  hand,  in  short 
drives  the  birds  are  practically  never  off  their  own  ground,  and 
consequently  get  used  to  the  butts,  however  conspicuous  they 
are,  and  do  not  fear  them.  In  this  case  nothing  seems  to  be 
better  than  the  horseshoe-shaped  butt  built  up  of  turfs  with 
heather  growing  on  the  top.  Slight  modifications  of  the 
horseshoe  formation  are  best  made  when  the  butts  are  used 
alternately  to  shoot  grouse  driven  from  opposite  directions. 
It  is  then  well  that  the  entrance  should  be  an  over-lap  of 
one  end. 

But  where  grouse  are  brought  off  their  own  ground,  and  are 
not  used   to   the   sight   of  peat   cutters   and   their   temporary 


240  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

stacking  of  the  peat,  it  seems  that  sunk  butts  are  of  the  most 
value.  The  latter  are  much  the  more  costly  to  make,  because 
they  require  draining  at  a  depth  of  3  or  4  feet  below  the 
surface.  The  manner  of  making  these  sunk  butts  is  not  to 
excavate  to  the  full  height  of  a  shooter's  gun  arm,  but  to  use 
the  turf  taken  out  of  a  partial  excavation  for  making  a  gradual 
slope  up  bank  close  to  the  pit,  a  foot  or  two  above  the 
surrounding  surface — the  object  being  that  the  bank  thus 
made  should  look  like  a  natural  heather  bank,  and  not  present 
a  black  surface  of  peats  to  the  sight  of  approaching  grouse. 
The  biggest  bags  ever  made  have  been  obtained  with  the 
upright  peat  butts  ;  but  The  Mackintosh,  who  has  had  the 
largest  day's  bag  in  Scotland,  prefers  sunk  butts. 

The  latter  gentleman  also  puts  his  butts  nearer  together 
than  anyone  else.  The  nearest  are  about  15  yards  apart. 
This  would  not  suit  most  people.  Possibly,  though,  this  too 
greatly  depends  upon  the  nature  of  the  driving.  Twenty  yards 
apart  may  be  far  enough  for  very  high  pheasants,  and  may 
prevent  two  guns  shooting  at  one  bird.  If  grouse  happened  to 
be  equally  high,  as  some  ground  might  easily  make  them,  the 
danger  of  shooting  other's  birds  would  be  lessened,  and  butts 
could  with  advantage  be  nearer  together  than  where  the  grouse 
flew  low.  In  the  beginning  of  driving,  butts  were  built  80  yards 
apart,  now  they  are  usually  made  at  50  yards  intervals. 
Low  flying  grouse,  going  half-way  between  butts  80  yards 
apart,  cannot  be  dealt  with ;  their  nearest  point  to  a  gun  is 
40  yards,  but  at  the  moment  when  they  are  between  the  butts 
they  cannot  be  safely  shot  at,  and  before  they  get  there  they 
are  out  of  range. 

No  doubt  most  missing  of  driven  grouse  is  caused  by 
shooting  at  them  too  far  away.  This  is  the  greatest  fault  of 
the  novice.  The  next  most  productive  source  of  missing  is 
shooting  under  coming  birds  and  over  those  that  have  passed 
the  butts.  After  this,  failure  to  allow  enough  ahead  of  fast 
birds,  to  compensate  for  their  movement  while  the  shot  is 
going  up,  is  the  next  most  productive  of  missing,  and  shooting 
too  much  in  front  of  slow  up-wind  birds  runs  it  hard. 


METHODS  OF  SHOOTING  THE  RED  GROUSE    241 

Beating  for  grouse  with  dogs  is  usually  done  by  going  to 
the  leeward  end  of  the  day's  beat  and  then  walking  at  right 
angles  with  the  wind,  and  turning  into  it  at  every  march  to  the 
shooting,  or  boundary  to  the  beat.  This,  however,  is  a  rule  that 
has  to  be  honoured  by  its  breach,  in  the  hill  districts  particularly. 
Thus,  when  beating  across  the  wind  means  that  one  has  to  rise 
and  sink  at  an  angle  of  45  degrees  every  time,  such  a  method 
has  to  give  way.  It  also  often  happens  when  a  fair  breeze 
is  blowing  that  to  start  beating  up  wind  near  a  boundary  march 
means  that  every  bird  will  circle  round  and  be  carried  by  the 
wind  out  of  bounds.  Then  the  rule  again  breaks  down.  The 
object  is  to  drive  the  birds  that  are  not  shot  into  ground  to  be 
beaten  in  the  afternoon.  This  is  best  done  by  an  up-wind 
beat  of  the  zigzag  order  when  the  wind  is  light,  and  by  a  down- 
wind beat,  starting  from  the  windward  march,  when  the  wind 
is  fairly  high,  but  not  so  high  as  to  carry  the  game  over  the 
leeward  march.  It  usually  happens  that  wind  sinks  about 
four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  or  before.  If  this  happens,  it  is 
a  good  plan  to  draw  off  and  go  round  to  begin  again  at  the 
leeward  side  of  the  ground  into  which  the  morning  birds  have 
been  driven.  The  majority  of  the  Welsh  moors  are  so  flat  that 
they  can  be  beaten  in  any  direction,  like  those  of  Caithness, 
but  the  Highland  moors  are  as  steep  as  the  Welsh  hills  are 
before  you  reach  the  heather  ground.  After  you  are  once  up 
in  Wales,  the  walking  is  easy  in  all  directions.  The  Highland 
hills  are  very  like  those  of  Wales,  but  with  this  great  difference, 
the  rises  from  the  Scotch  valleys  are  clothed  with  heather  and 
are  the  best  grouse  ground.  In  Wales  this  rise  is  grass  and 
fern-clad  sheep  farms,  and  often  takes  half  a  day's  work, 
counting  work  as  human  energy,  to  surmount  before  shooting 
begins.     For  this  reason  Providence  created  the  Welsh  pony. 

The  grouse  have  a  very  curious  habit  in  the  wet  weather 
of  affecting  the  wettest  and  wildest  parts  of  the  moorland. 
Then,  and  only  at  that  time,  you  may  find  them  mostly  on  the 
flat  floe  ground,  where  every  foot  of  peat  is  a  miniature  island, 
and  where  there  is  no  shelter  whatever  from  the  storm.  This 
is  probably  because  the  grouse  do  not  mind  rain  upon  them, 
16 


242  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

but  do  very  much  mind  brushing  the  wet  heather  with  their 
feathers.  At  such  times  grouse  are  generally  wild,  for  they 
will  not  "  squat "  and  hide,  but  run  very  much.  Then  they 
usually  have  very  good  scent,  the  dogs  find  and  point  them  a 
long  way,  and  then  draw  on  and  on  after  them  as  the  grouse 
run  ahead.  It  is  nevertheless  just  possible  to  get  good  shoot- 
ing by  two  guns  going  well  ahead,  very  wide  of  the  dogs,  and 
coming  back  to  meet  the  point.  It  is  the  sun,  not  the  wind  or 
the  wet,  that  makes  grouse  hide  in  the  heather,  and  probably 
the  reason  is  that  they  were  originally  an  Arctic  species,  and 
can  stand  cold  better  than  very  hot  sun.  In  support  of  this 
view  it  may  be  said  that  grouse  disease  seems  to  disappear  in 
very  cold  weather,  and  moreover  the  red  grouse  are,  in  every- 
thing but  feather  colouring  and  the  white  moult  of  winter,  the 
same  as  the  willow  grouse — an  obviously  Arctic  race. 

Amongst  the  methods  of  killing  grouse  that  have  almost 
died  out  are  first  "  becking,"  second  "  kiting,"  third  "  carting," 
fourth  shooting  them  upon  the  stooks,  and  a  variety  of  other 
devices  for  which  the  gun  was  not  used,  such  as  snaring  and 
netting. 

Some  of  these  methods  of  shooting  had  a  great  deal  to 
recommend  them.  First  of  all,  "becking"  is  the  art  of  hiding 
and  the  skill  of  calling  the  grouse  in  the  early  morning,  when 
this  proud  bird,  exulting  in  his  superabundance  of  energy, 
rises  into  the  air  and  crows  defiance.  He  is  quite  ready  for 
battle,  although  it  may  not  be  the  breeding  season ;  for  they 
"  beck "  in  August,  as  the  author  has  often  seen  and  heard 
through  an  open  window  as  he  lay  in  bed  waiting  for  the  first 
breakfast-bell.  The  loss  of"  becking  "  is  the  loss  of  an  automatic 
destruction  of  the  most  unfit,  namely  the  old  cocks,  which 
are  the  only  birds  that  will  accept  the  autumnal  challenge, 
and  come  to  make  things  hot  for  an  unseen  rival,  whose 
unrecognised  voice  sounds  as  if  he  had  no  right  there. 

"Kiting"  has  little  to  recommend  it,  except  that  it  too  is 
an  automatic  preservation  of  the  hens.  They  for  the  most 
part  will  not  lie  under  the  kite,  but  make  off  at  its  first 
appearance  upon  the  horizon.     The  stronger  and  bolder  cocks 


METHODS  OF  SHOOTING  THE  RED  GROUSE     243 

seem  to  delay  matters  until  the  thing  gets  right  above  them, 
and  then  they  too  become  scared,  but  dare  not  rise.  Thus 
they  get  kicked  up  and  shot  when  the  dogs  can  find  them, 
which  is  not  always.  When  they  are  up,  they  twist  under 
the  kite  like  a  snipe,  and  are  then  more  difficult  to  kill  than 
by  any  other  sporting  method ;  for  they  not  only  have  a 
snipe's  twist,  but  about  double  their  own  usual  pace,  exhibiting 
what  the  falcon  will  show  any  day  of  the  week — that  when 
we  think  birds  in  a  drive  are  doing  their  level  best  they  are 
in  reality  taking  things  easy.  The  writer  has  shot  at  driven 
grouse  with  a  falcon  in  actual  chase.  The  grouse  was  seen  to 
be  approaching  some  distance,  perhaps  50  yards,  before  it 
crossed.  There  was  no  time  to  shoot  in  front,  and  upon 
turning  round  it  was  seen  that  both  grouse  and  falcon  were 
already  out  of  range,  but  there  was  a  high  wind  blowing 
at  the  time  this  happened  on  the  *'  tops  "  at  Farr,  in  Inverness- 
shire. 

"Carting"  grouse  is  a  poaching  trick,  based  upon  the 
knowledge  that  the  birds  take  very  little  notice  of  a  cart, 
even  when  they  will  rise  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away  from  a  man 
on  foot.     The  shooting  is  done  from  the  cart. 

Shooting  grouse  on  the  stooks  has  only  this  in  its  favour : 
it  pleases  the  farmers.  It  is  a  butchery  of  those  killed  and 
a  waste  of  many  wounded.  But  to  hide  up  and  shoot  grouse 
as  they  come  into  the  oat-fields,  whether  uncut  or  in  stook, 
is  good  sport.  The  birds  do  not  usually  travel  as  fast  as  in 
grouse  driving,  but  they  are  quite  as  difficult,  because  they 
come  so  unexpectedly  and  silently.  To  make  the  best  work,  it 
does  not  do  to  trust  to  hiding  behind  a  wall,  or  on  the  other 
side  of  a  stook,  because  the  grouse  are  as  likely  to  come  from 
one  direction  as  the  other.  The  best  plan  is  to  build  a  grouse 
butt  with  the  oat  stooks,  in  order  that  the  shooter  may  straighten 
his  back ;  for  nobody  is  so  expert  as  to  be  able  to  shoot  well 
from  a  crouching  position,  although  kneeling  is  just  possible, 
and  most  uncomfortable. 

Another  form  of  grouse  shooting  used  to  be  called 
"  gruffing"  in  Yorkshire.     It  was  common  everywhere,  although 


244  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

it  may  not  have  a  name  elsewhere.  The  method  was  for  a 
single  gun  to  approach  hillocks  on  the  shady  side  and  walk 
round  them  to  the  sunny  side,  when  grouse  that  had  long 
become  too  wild  to  approach  openly  would  often  lie  and  afford 
good  easy  marks  by  this  method.  This  is  only  workable 
on  nice  sunny  days,  and  only  practicable  as  late  as  October 
and  November  between  lo  a.m.  and  2  p.m. 

There  is  a  wet-day  method  by  which  the  author  has  killed 
a  good  many  grouse.  It  is  with  a  retriever  to  walk  the  roads 
that  traverse  the  moors,  or,  better  still,  to  ride  a  shooting  pony 
along  them.  The  wildest  grouse  will  sometimes  take  no  notice 
of  a  passenger  along  the  well  recognised  roads,  and  they 
must  be  very  unreasonable  indeed  if  they  mind  a  mounted 
man.  Your  retriever  will  find  all  the  grouse  on  the  windward 
side  of  the  roads,  and  they  will  generally  rise  within  shot. 
Why  they  should  affect  the  roadsides  in  wet  weather  is  not 
so  easily  explained,  but  probably  it  is  that  they  prefer  to  sit 
on  the  roads  themselves,  where  their  feathers  are  not  in  contact 
with  wet  heather.  If  so,  they  just  move  off  in  time  not  to  be 
seen  by  the  coming  traveller. 

It  has  been  said  that  grouse  lie  better  to  a  black-and-tan 
and  to  a  red  setter  than  to  parti-coloured  dogs  in  which  white 
prevails.  There  is  no  truth  in  this  in  a  general  way.  After 
white  dogs  have  been  used  until  grouse  will  no  longer  He, 
they  will  often  lie  to  either  a  black-and-tan  or  a  red  dog,  but 
only  for  a  day,  and  only  a  few  of  them  for  that  short 
addition  to  the  length  of  the  dogging  season. 

Possibly  they  take  the  black-and-tan  for  a  collie,  and  the 
red  dog  for  a  fox.  On  one  occasion  the  author  saw  grouse 
treat  a  red  dog  in  a  way  extraordinary  anywhere,  except  in 
the  west  and  north  of  Scotland  and  in  Ireland ;  but  this  was 
in  the  Lowlands  of  Scotland,  where  the  grouse  were  wild  by 
instinct.  The  birds  were  seen  to  be  standing  up  in  front  of  the 
pointing  Irishman  and  flicking  their  tails  in  his  face,  and  even 
when  the  dog  drew  on  they  merely  just  kept  their  distance, 
still  flicking  their  tails.  There  was  not  the  slightest  attempt 
at   hiding.     Probably   this    is    the    method    they    have    when 


METHODS  OF  SHOOTING  THE  RED  GROUSE     245 

approached  by  a  fox ;  it  differs  greatly  from  the  behaviour  of 
the  average  grouse  before  the  man  and  the  ordinary  dog. 
Then  crouching  and  creeping  are  characteristics  of  the 
race,  unless  they  are  of  the  wild  sort,  when  standing  up 
to  look  for  an  enemy  is  habitual,  and  flying  upon  sight  is 
characteristic. 

[Since  writing  the  foregoing  remarks,  Mr.  Charles  Christie, 
of  Strathdon  Estate  Office,  has  very  kindly,  with  the  assent 
of  Sir  Charles  Forbes,  made  a  search  for  the  oft  misquoted 
records  of  the  Delnadamph  bag  of  1872.  The  bag  was  7000 
birds,  not  brace,  and  13 14  brace  of  these  were  killed  over  dogs 
in  five  days  by  four  guns,  whose  best  effort  resulted  in  435 
brace.  The  guns  were  Lord  Dunmore,  Lord  Newport  (now 
Lord  Bradford),  Mr.  George  Forbes,  and  the  late  Sir  Charles 
John  Forbes. 

Sir  Charles  Forbes'  Edinglassie  moor  yielded  8081  birds 
in  1900. 

Probably  the  record  bag  over  dogs  was  the  10,600  grouse 
killed  at  Glenbuchat  in  1872,  where  Mr.  James  W.  Barclay 
(the  owner)  very  kindly  informs  the  author  that  driving  was 
not  started  until  after  that  year,  whereas  the  greater  number 
were  killed  by  that  plan  at  Delnadamph  in  1872.] 


THE  LATEST  METHODS  OF  PRESER- 
VATION OF  PARTRIDGES 

AT  the  present  time  there  are  in  operation  many  more  ways 
of  preserving  partridges  than  ever  before.  Indeed,  the 
history  of  preserving  these  birds  up  to  about  1 860  could  hardly 
be  written  for  lack  of  material.  For  some  strange  reason,  at  the 
period  when  stubbles  were  cut  long  (and  the  author  has  shot  in 
them  a  foot  high  as  lately  as  1870),  and  when  partridges  sat  so 
close  to  the  points  of  dogs  that  to  all  appearances  they  could 
have  been  easily  exterminated,  they  nevertheless  seemed  to 
require  no  artificial  assistance,  and  even  no  designed  limitation 
of  the  reduction  to  the  breeding  stock.  Perhaps  it  was  that  the 
close  crouching  of  the  birds  in  good  covert  was  the  natural 
method  of  assuring  safety,  and  it  may  be  that  birds  that  could 
escape  detection  by  the  dogs  could  also  escape  it  by  the  foxes  and 
the  vermin. 

The  wilder  the  game  is,  and  the  more  it  runs,  the  more  scent 
it  gives  out  to  denote  its  presence  to  dogs  ;  and  with  guns  ahead, 
the  birds  that  flush  wild  do  not  escape  in  driving,  so  that  increase 
of  wildness  is  not  all  in  favour  of  the  game  even  upon  shooting 
days,  and  for  the  other  360  days  of  the  year  may  possibly  be 
against  them,  and  in  favour  of  the  vermin  that  hunts  by  smell. 

Whether  this  protection  by  the  wits  assists  birds  on  their 
nests  at  all,  and  if  so,  as  much  as  the  loss  of  scent  does,  is  too 
wide  a  question  to  enter  upon  here.  It  is  only  necessary  to 
remark  upon  that  subject  that  partridge  preservation  is  to  be 
divided,  broadly  speaking,  into  two  sy  .ems :  first,  that  which 
protects  birds  against  foxes ;  second,  that  which  is  not  called 
upon  to  add  this  heavy  duty  to  the  keeper's  ordinary  business. 

246 


METHODS  OF  PRESERVATION  OF  PARTRIDGES     247 

Roughly  generalising,  it  is  only  in  Norfolk  and  Suffolk  where 
the  keepers  are  not  troubled  with  the  fox  question,  and  conse- 
quently it  is  only  there  that  partridges  can  be  safely  left  alone 
to  find  their  own  salvation.  But  this  system  can  go  too 
far  even  in  those  favoured  counties,  and  naturally  we  find 
energetic  shooters  who  try  all  round,  declaring  that  Norfolk  and 
Suffolk  are  "  played  out."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  very  ease  of 
preservation  in  those  counties  has  done  them  a  great  deal  of 
comparative  injury,  because,  while  they  have  been  going  back, 
or  at  least  standing  still,  other  counties  have  been  going  ahead 
in  a  wonderful  manner.  Probably  the  progress  made  in 
Nottinghamshire,  Hampshire,  Wiltshire,  and  Cambridgeshire  is 
far  greater  than  anything  done  in  the  Eastern  Counties,  compared 
with  what  the  respective  stocks  were  in  those  districts  twenty- 
five  years  ago. 

The  first  phenomenal  partridge  preservation  and  the  first 
break  away  from  the  system  of  letting  birds  preserve  themselves 
occurred  at  Elvedon  in  the  sixties  of  last  century.  Then  large 
numbers  of  partridges  were  reared  by  hand  on  that  estate,  and  at 
the  same  time,  or  a  little  later,  a  great  many  people  began  to  rear 
partridges  by  hand.  One  of  these  was  Lord  Ducie,  in  Oxford- 
shire. The  plan  adopted  there  was  to  exchange  pheasants'  eggs 
for  those  of  partridges  with  anyone  who  would  bring  the  latter ; 
consequently,  it  may  be  said  that  Lord  Ducie  was  one  of  the 
first  men  to  prefer  partridge  shooting  to  covert  shooting.  Now, 
on  the  contrary,  a  very  great  many  people  set  the  partridge  up 
as  the  first  game  bird,  and  his  popularity  is  growing. 

But  to  return  to  the  hand  rearing  of  partridges  :  the  difficulty 
of  this  business  is  twofold.  First,  it  is  generally  believed  that 
the  birds  must  be  fed  with  ants'  eggs  to  make  a  success.  Second, 
it  is  asserted  that  tame  bred  partridges  "  pack,"  and  that  without 
old  birds  to  lead  them  these  packs  are  likely  to  travel  for  miles 
and  be  lost  to  those  to  whom  they  belong. 

The  first  charge  against  hand  rearing  is  not  exactly  true, 
because  Lord  Ducie's  keeper  succeeded  in  rearing  large  quantities 
of  partridges  without  the  use  of  ants'  eggs.  The  author  as  a  boy 
and  in  an  amateurish  way  reared  birds  about  the  same  period. 


248  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

but  by  the  use  of  ants'  eggs,  and  consequently  that  experience 
does  not  go  for  much,  because  there  is  no  difficulty  in  the  task 
where  plenty  of  these  insects  are  to  be  found  to  feed  the  birds 
entirely  for  the  first  six  weeks. 

The  trouble  arises  when  there  are  some  ants'  eggs  but  not 
enough  to  go  round,  for  this  food  has  the  effect  of  setting  the 
young  birds  against  everything  else.  Lord  Ducie's  partridges 
were  mainly  fed  upon  meal  of  some  kind,  although  the  writer 
forgets  what  it  was.  Another  precaution  that  was  taken  was  to 
distribute  the  coops  very  widely  along  the  sides  of  corn-fields, 
and  there  is  no  doubt  that  this  plan  obliged  the  birds  to  hunt 
for  insect  food  at  a  much  earlier  age  than  if  they  had  been  kept 
upon  ants'  eggs.  Unfortunately,  the  chicks  will  not  eat  the 
ants  themselves ;  otherwise  the  getting  of  ant-hills  to  cart  to  the 
birds  would  go  three  times  as  far  as  it  does,  for  there  are 
generally  twice  as  many  wingless  ants  as  there  are  eggs  to 
every  nest. 

The  second  charge  against  these  tame  birds  is  that  they  grow 
too  wild  in  packs  and  fly  right  away,  and  this  is  a  fact  beyond 
all  dispute.  However,  it  has  been  said  that  cock  partridges 
will  sometimes  take  to  young  birds  reared  by  hens,  if  the 
bachelor  partridges  are  themselves  penned  in  the  neighbourhood 
when  the  little  chicks  are  first  carried  from  the  sitting  boxes  to 
the  coops.  There  appears  here  to  be  a  possible  future  for  hand 
rearing  without  its  old  disadvantage  of  packing.  Probably 
most  people  will  think  that  the  cock  partridge  is  better  occupied 
in  assisting  his  own  proper  mate  to  raise  the  very  big  coveys 
that  are  now  manufactured  by  the  joint  efforts  of  birds  and 
keepers. 

This  partnership  arrangement  came  about  when  the  keeper 
at  The  Grange  discovered  how  easy  it  was,  with  proper  pre- 
cautions, to  make  up  the  nests  oi  sitting  partridges  to  20  or 
more  eggs.  The  result  of  this  was  that,  although  eggs  had  for 
many  years  been  changed  during  the  laying  period,  to  effect 
cross  breeding,  it  now  became  possible  to  employ  the  partridges 
themselves  to  do  the  work  of  foster-mothers — a  vocation  that 
farmyard  hens  had  only  half  performed  hitherto,  and  done  their 


METHODS  OF  PRESERVATION  OF  PARTRIDGES    249 

part  badly.  All  destroyed  nests,  as  well  as  those  that  looked 
likely  to  be  destroyed,  could  now  have  their  eggs  hatched 
without  the  intervention  of  those  fowls  that  always  want  to 
start  laying  again  just  as  they  are  most  desired  to  keep  their 
foster  game  chicks  from  **  sowing  wild  oats." 

Obviously  The  Grange  plan  would  not  have  been  of  much 
use  had  not  a  very  careful  record  been  kept  of  when  each  bird 
began  to  sit ;  for  it  was  necessary  that  eggs  added  after  the  laying 
season  should  only  be  those  in  precisely  the  same  advanced 
state  of  incubation  as  those  already  in  the  nest.  Someone  has 
said  that  the  cock  bird  goes  off  with  the  first  chicks  hatched, 
and  leaves  the  hen  to  manage  the  other  eggs ;  but  this  is  not  so, 
and  if  added  eggs  are  twenty-four  hours  behind  the  others  they 
will  generally  be  left  unhatched  in  the  nest. 

Probably  all  the  great  partridge  estates  have  advanced  as 
far  as  this.  It  marks  the  time  at  Holkham  in  the  north  of 
Norfolk  as  well  as  Orwell  Park  in  the  south  of  Suffolk.  But 
although  these  two  estates  are  hard  to  beat  in  the  matter  of  big 
days,  the  partridge  yield  is  not  the  highest  per  acre  on  either  of 
these  celebrated  estates,  and  never  has  been.  At  Holkham 
about  8000  birds  on  12,000  acres  is  the  most  that  has  been  done. 
At  Orwell  6000  birds  upon  18,000  acres  is  not  regarded  as 
bad.  Both  of  these  estates  are  considered  the  best  possible  land 
for  partridges,  and  both  of  them  have  also  the  advantage  that 
foxes  are  particularly  scarce  in  the  districts  of  Norfolk  and 
Suffolk.  No  Hungarian  birds  have  ever  been  used  at  Holkham, 
although  eggs  are  exchanged  for  fresh  blood.  At  Orwell  this 
method  is  also  practised,  and  as  many  as  1000  eggs  in  a  season 
have  been  obtained  from  Cumberland  and  Hampshire,  by 
exchange  with  Sir  R.  Graham  and  Lord  Ashburton.  Nests  are 
made  up  to  20  eggs  at  Orwell,  and  occasionally  eggs  are  placed 
under  hens  until  hatched,  when  the  young  birds  are  given  to 
old  partridges  on  the  point  of  hatching  out.  But  here  the 
appearance  of  the  old  sitting  birds  is  relied  upon  to  indicate 
when  that  time  comes.  Thus,  when  two  partridges  are  seen 
sitting  on  the  same  nest,  it  is  taken  for  granted  that  the  egg- 
chipping  stage  has  been  reached. 


250  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

Holkham  has  been  the  most  famous  partridge  estate  for  a 
century,  but  much  of  this  fame  is  owing  to  the  fact  that  it  is 
a  very  large  estate,  naturally  well  suited  for  game,  and  especi- 
ally for  partridges.  Besides  this,  it  was  one  of  the  first  upon 
which  partridge  driving  was  practised,  and  this  method  seems 
to  have  raised  the  stock  by  double.  At  the  same  time,  the 
system  of  only  using  the  same  beat  once  in  the  season  limits 
the  kill  enormously. 

This  estate  has  beaten  all  previous  records  for  a  single 
day's  shooting  by  a  bag  of  1671  birds  in  1905.  Naturally  the 
thought  at  once  occurs  that  the  Holkham  must  be  the  best 
system ;  but  when  we  understand  that  this  beat  is  made  upon 
2000  acres  in  20  drives  to  8  guns,  and  that  this  is  the  total 
season's  bag  of  the  very  best  beat  in  the  very  best  partridge 
land  in  England,  and  remember  also  that  on  8coo  acres  of 
the  best  land  only  4749  birds  were  bagged  as  the  whole  season's 
work,  but  all  in  four  days,  the  question  arises.  What  would 
Holkham  do  in  the  season  if  it  were  subjected  to  the  most 
modern  methods  of  preservation  ? 

Another  splendid  estate  for  game,  and  one  similar  to 
Holkham  in  size  and  dryness  of  land,  is  Euston.  The  Duke 
of  Grafton  has  in  a  letter  to  the  Times  repudiated  the  idea  that 
partridges  are  preserved  at  Euston  by  the  plan  adopted  there 
for  pheasants.  On  the  contrary,  the  partridge  preserving  at 
Euston  has  been  of  the  same  character  as  elsewhere  in  Norfolk 
and  Suffolk.  The  ill-named  "  Euston  plan"  was  not  wanted  there 
for  partridges,  and  was  applied  only  to  pheasants,  and  to  them 
not  as  has  been  very  often  described.  The  great  difference 
between  the  Euston  pheasant  system  and  the  latest  method 
with  partridges,  erroneously  described  and  applied  to  Euston, 
is  that  in  the  case  of  pheasants  at  Euston  the  birds  are  not 
kept  sitting  on  sham  or  bad  eggs  while  their  own  are  being 
incubated.  They  are,  according  to  the  Duke's  letter,  allowed 
to  sit  on  their  own  eggs,  and  when  the  latter  are  chipping  they 
are  given  more  eggs  in  the  same  forward  condition — such  eggs 
as  have  been  picked  up  out  of  destroyed  nests. 

The  system  that  is   not   employed  at  Euston,  then,  either 


METHODS  OF  PRESERVATION  OF  PARTRIDGES    251 

for  partridges  or  pheasants,  is  that  in  which  the  period  of 
incubating  is  shortened  for  the  wild  bird  by  picking  up  all  her 
eggs  as  laid  and  incubating  them  under  barndoor  poultry. 

By  this  latter  plan  the  period  of  incubation  of  any  in- 
dividual bird  can  be  pretty  nearly  what  the  keeper  wishes  it 
to  be,  and  its  length  will  greatly  depend  upon  the  number 
of  foxes,  he  nature  of  the  soil,  and  the  situation  of  the 
nests.  The  success  of  this  system  on  Mr.  Pearson  Gregory's 
property  in  the  great  fox-hunting  county  of  Lincolnshire  was 
perhaps  the  origin  of  ill-naming  the  plan  after  Euston,  and 
came  about  because  of  Mr.  Pearson  Gregory's  tenancy  of 
Euston. 

That  the  minor  assistance  should  have  enabled  6000  wild 
pheasants  to  be  killed  at  Euston  per  annum  is  sufficiently 
remarkable,  and  is  a  fact  due  to  the  objection  of  the  Duke 
of  Grafton  to  hand  rearing,  and  to  the  initiative  of  the  clever 
Euston  keeper,  who  found  a  middle  course  that  turned  out 
even  better  than  hand  rearing.  But  in  the  absence  of  foxes, 
as  Lord  Granby  has  remarked,  the  soil  breeds  game  at  Euston, 
and  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  same  system  would  suffice 
either  upon  a  clay  soil  where  rain  could  drown  out  the  nests  or 
where  foxes  abound.  For  such  districts  the  essence  of  the  new 
plan  is  the  shortening  of  the  incubating  period,  or  the  "  clear  " 
^SS  system.  The  clear  eggs  used  are  necessarily,  and  un- 
objectionably,  pheasants'  eggs,  as  those  of  partridges  should 
not  exist,  and  when  they  do  exist  are  discovered  too  late  to  be 
of  any  use  for  that  season. 

It  was  probably  in  the  Newmarket  district  of  Cambridge- 
shire where  the  system  of  the  short  incubation  period  for 
partridges  was  first  put  into  practice ;  for,  as  has  been  observed, 
there  is  no  such  great  need  of  it  in  the  sandy  soils  of  Norfolk 
and  Suffolk,  which  drain  themselves,  and  besides  have  not  to 
contend  with  foxes.  Possibly  Stetchworth  was  one  of  the  first, 
if  not  the  actual  first,  estate  where  it  became  a  recognised 
practice  to  take  eggs  and  keep  the  birds  sitting  upon  clear 
pheasants'  eggs  until  a  number  of  25  partridges'  eggs  were 
chipped  and  ready  to  place  under  the  sitting  bird,  which  might 


252  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

have  been  sitting  but  ten  days  instead  of  the  usual  twenty-four. 
On  various  occasions  this  plan  has  been  described  as  if  it  were 
new,  and  an  emergency  plan,  at  Stetchworth  in  1905  ;  but  that 
is  by  no  means  the  case,  as  it  is  the  plan  by  which  the  most 
hostile  forces  of  nature  in  the  shape  of  bad  seasons  have  been 
rendered  comparatively  harmless.  Any  plan  that  permits 
bags  of  about  5CX)  birds  and  upwards  per  day  to  be  made  for 
many  days,  and  in  spite  of  such  seasons  as  the  last  five,  three 
of  which  were  wet  and  the  fourth  and  fifth  bad  with  thunder- 
storms, must  be  wonderful. 

Not  content  with  the  short  incubation  system,  Lord 
Ellesmere  has  tried  every  other  at  Stetchworth.  Hungarian 
partridges  in  small  quantities  have  been  attempted,  and  also 
the  French  system  of  preservation  by  pairing  birds  in  pens. 
When  the  author  last  heard  about  the  latter  system,  the  results 
were  not  to  be  compared  for  a  moment  with  those  of  the  real 
wild  birds  assisted  by  the  short  incubation  plan. 

Another  place  where  all  the  systems  have  been  tried  (except 
the  French,  as  far  as  is  known  to  the  writer)  is  Rushmore,  in 
Wilts,  where  Mr.  Glen  Kidston  has  achieved  a  revolution  in 
partridge  preservation  and  vermin  killing.  He  is  a  believer 
in  making  it  the  keeper's  business  to  keep  down  rats,  and  as  a 
matter  of  fact  that  is  another  lesson  that  Norfolk  and  Suffolk 
might  learn  from  less  naturally  favoured  counties.  Where  this 
business  is  left  to  the  farmers  it  is  not  properly  done.  As  the 
keepers  have  killed  nearly  5000  rats  in  a  season  at  Rushmore,  it 
goes  without  saying  how  the  partridges'  eggs  would  have  fared 
had  these  horrible  creatures  been  left  to  raid  upon  them.  Un- 
questionably the  greatest  service  that  keepers  can  ever  do  to 
farmers  is  to  keep  down  rats.  Hand  rearing  and  Hungarian 
eggs  have  been  largely  employed  at  Rushmore,  where  there 
are  plenty  of  ants'  eggs  for  all  comers,  and  plenty  of  space  in 
which  to  distribute  the  partridge  coops  in  turnip-fields,  and  it 
is  said  not  close  enough  together  to  make  "  packing "  a  thing 
to  be  feared. 

The  principle  that  numbers  bring  disease  is  not  feared  at 
Rushmore,  for   although  as   many  as   1200  hand-reared  birds 


METHODS  OF  PRESERVATION  OF  PARTRIDGES     253 

were  lost  in  a  few  days  in  1904,  the  next  season  saw  better 
results  than  ever. 

The  Duke  of  Portland  has  converted  his  Welbeck  property 
of  light  limestone  subsoil  into  a  great  partridge  district,  and 
has  employed  large  quantities  of  Hungarian  birds  to  effect 
the  change,  having  turned  out  as  many  as  1200  birds 
at  one  time.  Like  Rushmore,  the  Duke's  property  is  not  well 
watered,  and  there  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  running  or 
stagnant  water  is  not  necessary  to  young  partridges  when  at 
large.  At  any  rate,  there  are  a  number  of  very  fine  partridge 
estates  on  which  it  would  be  quite  impossible  for  the  birds  to 
drink,  except  the  dew,  until  they  were  able  to  delight  in  flights 
of  three-parts  of  a  mile.  At  Moulton  Paddocks,  near  New- 
market, Mr.  F.  E.  R.  Fryer,  who  is  as  admirable  as  a  preserver 
as  he  is  as  a  shot,  supplies  pans  of  water  in  his  fields  for  the 
partridges.  He  adjoins  those  great  shootings  of  Chippenham 
and  Cheveley,  and  as  he  has  scored  nearly  i|  birds  to  the 
acre,  or  700  birds  on  500  acres  in  the  year,  his  management 
must  be  beyond  reproach.  That  is  more  than  twice  as  many 
birds  per  acre  as  at  Lord  Leicester's  fine  place,  Holkham ;  but 
then  with  such  neighbours  as  Mr.  Fryer  has,  it  is  a  less  difficult 
task  to  keep  a  very  high  stock  on  a  small  than  upon  a  large 
place. 

In  Oxfordshire,  Mr.  J.  F.  Mason,  of  Eynsham  Hall,  has 
reverted  to  the  system  that  his  neighbour  Lord  Ducie  practised 
in  the  Chipping  Norton  district  in  the  sixties  of  last  century. 
That  is,  he  breeds  large  quantities  of  partridges  by  hand ;  but 
the  wet  destroyed  his  chances  in  1905. 

In  Scotland,  Sir  John  Gladstone  has  had  admirable  success 
with  Hungarian  eggs,  and  Sir  William  Gordon  Gumming  has 
tried  the  French  system  on  a  larger  scale  than  most  people. 
At  Stetchworth  the  partridge  keepers  have  no  pheasant  rearing 
to  do;  and  of  course  this  is  the  case  where  there  are  no 
pheasants  reared  by  hand,  as  at  Euston  in  Suffolk  and 
Honingham  in  Norfolk.  At  the  latter  place,  Mr.  Fellowes, 
lately  Minister  of  Agriculture  and  a  great  farmer,  makes  his 
estate   of  45cmd   acres   yield   nearly  3000   partridges,  and   also 


254  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

1 200  wild  bred  pheasants.  In  the  New  Forest,  Lord  Montague 
manages  to  kill  about  4000  more  pheasants  than  he  rears  by 
hand,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  latest  phase  of  pre- 
servation is  directly  opposite  to  that  of  ten  and  fifteen  years 
ago,  when  the  keepers  did  everything  possible  for  the  pheasants 
and  practically  nothing  for  the  partridges. 

Crosses  with  the  Mongolian  pheasants  have  been  tried  in 
many  places,  and  they  are  everywhere  reported  easy  to  rear, — 
some  people  have  said  as  easy  as  chickens, — but  they  have  not 
been  tried,  as  far  as  is  known  to  the  author,  in  the  wild  state, 
and  whether  the  ease  of  rearing  by  hand  will  be  confirmed  in 
that  state  of  nature  will  make  very  much  difference  to  the 
future  of  pheasant  preserving.  On  the  other  hand,  several 
people  have  reported  that  the  cross-bred  Mongolian  birds 
drive  away  the  common  birds  from  the  food,  and  for  this 
reason  they  will  not  be  continued  in  at  least  one  quarter.  At 
the  same  time,  they  are  said  to  fly  higher  than  the  birds  we 
have  already,  but  that  again  is  not  much  of  a  recommendation, 
since  our  pheasants  can  be  made  to  fly  high  enough  by  judicious 
handling,  and  no  pheasants  will  fly  high  unless  circumstances 
compel  them  to  do  so. 

The  author  believes  that  the  map  system  of  partridge  pre- 
servation was  originated  by  Marlow,  the  keeper  at  The  Grange, 
in  Hampshire,  and  it  is  entirely  due  to  this  plan  that  the 
Euston  system  with  the  pheasants,  and  the  short  incubation 
system  with  partridges,  as  practised  at  Stetchworth,  was  made 
possible.  The  map  is  an  important  item  in  the  organisation  of 
preservation  on  this  last-named  estate,  where,  amongst  other 
eggs  that  are  carried  out  to  partridges  sitting  on  unfertile 
pheasants'  eggs,  are  a  number  of  chipped  Hungarian  partridges' 
eggs.  This  plan  of  mixing  the  Hungarian  eggs  with  those  of 
the  home  birds  is  the  best  and  surest  way  of  effecting  a  cross 
of  blood  in  the  following  year. 

It  would  not  be  wise  to  compare  Stetchworth  bags  with 
those  of  Holkham,  because  the  conditions  are  so  difTerent. 
At  the  former  a  day  consists  of  a  dozen  drives,  at  the  latter 
of  about  22,  or  that  was  the  number  when  the  record  4749  in 


METHODS  OF  PRESERVATION  OF  PARTRIDGES     255 

four  days  was  made.  Then  Lord  Leicester  and  Lord  Coke 
appear  to  select  guns  for  their  deadliness,  whereas  Lord 
Ellesmere  generally  has  a  family  party.  Besides  this,  probably 
few  people  would  consider  the  soil  of  The  Six  Mile  Bottom 
district,  which  is  the  adjoining  shooting  to  Lord  Ellesmere's 
Stetchworth  property,  to  be  equal  to  that  of  Norfolk  and  Suffolk 
as  natural  game  country.  At  any  rate,  even  in  the  1905  dry 
year,  a  great  many  partridges  were  driven  off  their  nests  by 
a  three  days'  rain  and  deserted,  some  of  them  entirely,  others 
only  for  a  few  days.  Here  the  system  was  equal  to  the  occasion, 
for  those  that  came  back  to  the  clear  pheasants'  eggs  were  given 
chipped  partridges'  eggs  to  go  off  with,  and  those  that  did  not 
had  only  deserted  bad  pheasants'  eggs  in  some  cases,  and  when 
it  was  otherwise  the  keepers  were  there  to  save  the  situation, 
for  the  nests  and  their  low  situations  were  indicated  on  the 
map. 

It  has  been  shown  above  that  even  hand  rearing  cannot 
be  relied  upon,  as  m  Oxfordshire,  to  save  the  situation  in  spite 
of  adverse  elements ;  but  the  latest  phase  of  partridge  pre- 
serving is  a  combination  of  three  methods — namely,  ist,  the 
introduction  of  Hungarians ;  2nd,  the  French  system ;  and 
3rd,  artificial  incubation.  It  has  often  been  affirmed  that  the 
French  system  has  failed  badly  in  this  country,  but  probably 
that  is  entirely  due  to  want  of  carefulness  in  matters  of  the 
smallest  detail.  At  any  rate,  Sir  William  Gordon  Gumming 
makes  each  penned  pair  of  Hungarians  produce  an  average 
of  19  young.  This  is  so  remarkable  and  so  satisfactory 
that  it  must  be  related  in  detail.  In  the  first  place,  the 
matrimonial  relations  are  never  forced,  but  those  birds  that 
have  refused  to  mate  in  the  big  pens  where  they  have  been 
since  November  are  turned  loose.  The  affections  of  the 
others  having  been  under  observation,  each  pair  is  removed 
to  a  circular  pen  of  27  feet  diameter.  It  has  been  observed 
that  when  a  hen  bird  dies  the  cock  will  generally  take  on 
her  duties.  The  success  obtained  by  this  method  of  only 
three  years'  standing  is  already  quite  wonderful,  and  the 
season   of   1905  resulted  in  doubling  the  bags,  and  also  in  a 


256  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

much  larger  breeding  stock  being  left.  Sir  William  Gordon 
Gumming  believes  that  given  good  weather  the  bag  will  again 
be  doubled,  so  that  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  there  is,  after 
all,  no  "  best "  about  the  new  systems,  but  that  a  combination 
of  all  may  be  better  than  any.  Sir  William  Gumming  adds  that 
after  doubling  his  bag  two  years  in  succession  he  has  left  in 
the  second  more  birds  to  breed  than  he  usually  commences 
the  shooting  season  with. 

The  following  are  explanatory  letters  from  Sir  W.  Gordon 
Gumming  and  his  keeper : — 

"  Altyre,  Forres,  N.B. 
"26.  I.  06 

"  Dear  Sir, — I  have  adopted  what  is  called  the  *  French 
system '  of  partridge  rearing  for  the  last  two  years.  Formerly 
I  used  to  buy  20  couple  of  Hungarians  and  turn  them  loose  at 
different  parts  of  my  estate.  I  could  see  no  appreciable 
difference  in  the  result.  I  have  now  built  a  pen,  40  by  60 
yards,  into  which  I  turn  60  couple  Hungarians  male  and  female 
in  equal  (?)  proportions  about  the  middle  of  November.  A 
man  is  told  off  to  feed  and  look  after  them.  The  birds  are 
'  brailed '  before  being  put  in — i.e.,  a  small  specially  constructed 
strap  confines  some  of  the  upper  wings — sufficient  to  prevent 
flight.  The  pen  is  supplied  with  gravel,  bushes,  water,  etc.,  turfed 
3  feet  all  round,  and  plentifully  trapped  outside.  Rats  and  cats 
are  to  be  dreaded.  About  the  pairing-time  the  man  in  charge 
is  constantly  on  the  watch  for  any  couple  who  appear  to  be 
inclined  to  matrimony — it  is  a  mistake  to  think  that  any  two 
birds  will  marry,  they  are  extremely  particular  on  the  point, 
and  many  remain  celibates  altogether.  Any  amorous  couple 
is  quietly  herded  into  one  of  two  pens  which  are  in  the 
enclosure,  and  at  once  transferred  to  a  separate  establishment, 
where  are  some  30  small  circular  pens,  about  27  feet  in 
diameter,  and  there  they  reside  till  eggs  result.  The  first  lot 
of  eggs  is  usually  transferred  to  a  hen  ;  the  next  batch  is 
looked  after  by  the  partridges  themselves ;  occasionally  a  hen 
dies,  when  the  cock  will  nearly  always  take  up  her  duties.  Any 
birds  that  refuse  to  pair  are  simply  turned  out.  I  calculate  we 
averaged  19  young  birds  to  every  couple  so  treated  last  season. 
I  commenced  serious  shooting  late  in  September,  and  more 
than  doubled  my  bag  of  last  season,  leaving  on  November  10, 
1905,  a  larger   stock  of  birds   at   expiration  of  the  shooting 


METHODS  OF  PRESERVATION  OF  PARTRIDGES    257 

season  than  I  have  usually  commenced  with.  Of  course  we 
are  largely  dependent  on  fine  weather  at  the  time  of  hatching, 
and  have  been  very  lucky  the  last  two  years.  If  the  fortune 
continues  this  year,  I  expect  to  nearly  double  my  bag  of  last 
year.  I  have  probably  given  you  some  information  of  which 
you  are  already  quite  aware.  If  I  have  neglected  any  point, 
I  shall  be  glad  to  write  you  further;  or  if  you  would  like  to 
communicate  with  Mr.  Bell,  Gordonstoun,  Elgin,  N.B.,  my  head 
keeper,  he  would  doubtless  be  able  to  make  clear  certain  points 
that  do  not  strike  me  at  present.  I  may  mention  that  I  have 
taken  almost  entirely  to  driving  birds — a  system  rarely,  if  ever, 
adopted  on  many  estates  elsewhere  in  the  neighbourhood 
hitherto,  and  with  marked  success  within  a  sporting  view,  and 
as  regards  result  of  the  day.  But  we  have  much  to  learn  in 
this  respect,  and  I  think  a  little  more  experience  would  have 
been  beneficial  in  many  ways. 

"  My  Hungarians  are  supplied  by  Major  C.  Ker  Fox,  and 
have  always  turned  up  in  good  condition  ;  any  found  dead  or 
weakly  on  arrival,  he  readily  replaces.  I  have  shot  Hungarian 
birds  in  their  own  country,  and  never  thought  I  could  detect 
any  difference  between  them  and  our  own :  last  year's  batch, 
however,  were  much  redder  in  colour  than  any  I  have  previously 
seen. — Yours  very  faithfully, 

"(Signed)     W.  GORDON  Cumming" 

"  Gordonstoun,  Elgin 
"  Sept.  2gth,  1906 
"  G.  T.  Teasdale-Buckell,  Esq. 

"  Sir, — As  regards  our  method  of  increasing  partridges, 
I  will  try  and  explain,  and  answer  your  questions  as  well  as  I 
can.  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  to  get  up  a  large  stock 
our  system  is  the  best.  I  say  this  after  many  years'  experience 
with  partridges. 

"I.  Do  I  pick  up  first-laid  eggs?  No,  unless  she  lays 
more  than  24,  then  I  reserve  them  for  another  nest ;  sometimes 
I  allow  them  26,  not  more. 

"  2.  Yes,  she  would  lay  again ;  but  I  believe  strongly  in 
early  chicks.  [This  is  an  answer  to  a  question  as  to  whether 
the  hen  would  lay  again  after  beginning  to  sit. — The  Author.] 

"  3.  I  don't  take  them  gradually,  or  at  any  time,  unless  they 
lay  30  or  40,  as  they  sometimes  do  ;  then  I  take  them  after  they 
have  laid  24,  or  not  until  they  sit  or  brood. 

"4.  Our  success  this  season  (1906)  is  almost  19  to  the  brood. 

17 


258  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

"5.1  have  not  tried  an  unpaired  cock  partridge  to  take 
chicks,  but  I  think  he  will,  as  the  ones  I  tried  had  lost  their 
partners  long  before  I  tried  them  :  this  was  always  successful. 

"6.  How  to  obtain  the  average  turn-out  of  chicks.  Some 
birds  lay  more  than  they  are  able  to  hatch ;  these  eggs  are  given 
to  barndoor  fowls  along  with  other  eggs  that  are  laid  outside, 
by  wild  birds,  on  roadsides  and  dangerous  places :  these  eggs 
are  given  to  the  fowls  only  on  the  days  that  the  partridges  in  the 
pens  start  to  brood,  so  that  they  hatch  out  at  the  same  time. 
Say  one  hen  broods  June  ist,  you  can  make  her  up  in  the  way 
I  have  stated  by  setting  4  or  6  eggs  on  the  same  date  under 
a  fowl,  according  to  the  number  (as  you  like)  the  partridge 
has.  You  can  put  more  eggs  in  below  fowl  next  day,  if  3  or  4 
partridges  have  then  brooded.  This  is  the  great  advantage: 
there  is  no  waste  of  eggs  on  a  partridge  estate.  I  could  turn 
out  30  chicks  to  the  brood,  only  I  think  18  or  20  quite  sufficient. 
Without  outside  help  at  all,  with  eggs  that  are  over-laid  in 
pens,  the  coveys  will  easily  run  from  16  to  18  to  a  brood.  This 
is  not  a  hay-growing  place,  but  if  any  nests  were  going  to  be 
spoiled  by  the  cutting  of  hay  they  can  all  be  put  to  account  by 
this  system. 

"In  wet  weather  you  can  turn  out  chicks  on  dry  ground. 

"On  large  estates  I  would  give  each  keeper  10  or  12  pens 
for  the  paired  birds ;  this  would  give  them  an  interest,  and 
greatly  help  their  show  on  shooting  days. 

"  Sir  William  must  have  grasped  a  wrong  idea  about  me  taking 
away  her  [partridge's]  first  consignment  of  eggs.  I  interfere  as 
little  as  possible  with  them  and  their  nests  at  that  time.  To 
take  away  their  first  eggs  would  throw  them  too  late;  this 
would  mean  probably  three  weeks  later,  or  thereabouts. 

"  When  I  said  I  have  had  a  large  experience  with  partridges 
I  did  not  mean  in  this  system,  but  I  have  always  been  among 
partridges  and  have  seen  lots  of  plans  tried,  but  I  am  convinced 
this  is  the  best. — I  remain,  sir,  your  obedient  servant, 

"(Signed)     ROBERT  Bell" 

One  word  must  be  added  to  the  above  letters :  it  is  not  safe 
to  rely  on  imported  Hungarian,  and  home  produced,  partridges' 
eggs  hatching  in  the  same  number  of  days ;  the  former  will  often 
take  the  longer. 


PARTRIDGE  BAGS  AND  DRIVING 

IN  the  foregoing  chapter  it  has  been  shown  to  what  point 
the  greatest  bag  of  partridges  in  a  day  has  arrived  in 
England.  But  more  than  double  the  number  of  these  birds 
has  been  killed  in  one  day  in  Bohemia.  The  biggest  bag 
there  has  been  4000  in  one  day.  The  method  of  preserving 
adopted  there  is  to  make  an  outlying  estate  serve  as  an 
assistance  to  an  inner  preserved  portion.  But  it  is  not,  as  has 
been  thought,  to  catch  up  birds  and  bring  them  in  for  a  day's 
shooting,  as  was  done  by  Baron  Hirsch  in  Hungary.  The 
birds  may  be  caught  up  and  brought  in  to  breed,  or  the  eggs 
from  outlying  ground  may  be  brought  in  to  fill  up  nests.  In 
either  case  that  is  merely  the  English  plan  ;  but  the  author  is 
assured  that  where  the  biggest  bags  are  made  no  removal  of 
coveys  in  the  shooting  season  has  occurred.  The  birds  are  fed 
in  the  winter,  and  herein  lies  the  principal  difference  between 
our  own  and  the  Continental  system  of  preservation.  The 
snow  there  lies  for  weeks,  and  to  keep  the  birds  alive  wheat  is 
given  to  them ;  but  the  Hungarian  and  Bohemian  preserves 
conclusively  upset  one  notion  that  has  got  firm  hold  in  this 
country.  They  beat  us  very  easily  in  partridge  productive- 
ness, and  they  do  it  without  driving.  Of  course  Baron  Hirsch's 
big  bags  were  made  by  driving,  but  his  was  a  system  foreign 
to  the  country,  and  has  been  fairly  beaten  by  different  methods 
that  are  generally  employed.  The  big  bags  are  mostly  made 
by  a  system  of  walking  up  the  partridges  in  the  corn.  The 
author,  then,  is  constrained  to  look  for  other  than  driving 
reasons  for  the  increase  of  partridges,  and  he  wholly  agrees 
with  Mr.  Charles  Alington  in  saying  that  the  reason  driving 

259 


26o  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

increases  partridges  is  because  preservers  who  drive  the  birds 
are  not  satisfied  with  the  stocks  of  partridges  that  previously 
did  satisfy  them.  They  cannot  have  any  shooting  at  all  unless 
there  are  enough  birds  to  give  a  day  to  half  a  dozen  friends  ; 
whereas  before  one  covey  gave  sport,  and  would  be  followed 
all  day  by  a  couple  of  guns,  until  only  its  remnant  was  left  to 
stock  a  farm  or  an  estate.  The  author  also  agrees  with  Mr. 
Alington  in  saying  that  it  is  not  because  old  birds  are  killed 
by  driving  that  this  system  succeeds.  Even  where  driving  is 
practised,  the  keepers  on  some  estates  net  the  birds  after  the 
shooting  season  in  order  to  break  the  necks  of  the  old  cocks 
and  let  off  the  young  birds,  which  is  quite  enough  proof  that 
driving  is  not  an  automatic  selection  of  old  cocks.  The  latter 
should  be  killed,  for  the  reason,  that  they  occupy  for  themselves 
five  or  ten  times  the  ground  that  will  satisfy  a  young  pair  of 
birds.  On  one  of  these  netting  expeditions,  Coggins,  the 
clever  head  keeper  at  Acton  Reynold,  caught  a  woodcock,  so 
that  even  a  night  bird  may  make  a  mistake  in  its  most  wakeful 
hours. 

Mr.  Alington  described  how  one  pair  of  very  old  partridges 
took  sole  possession  of  a  fence  and  made  their  nest,  which,  by 
him,  old  birds  are  supposed  to  make  earlier  than  young  ones. 
He  had  these  two  birds  destroyed,  and  then  there  were  ten 
nests  made  in  that  fence.  This  partridge  shooter  also  believes 
that  no  partridge  lays  before  10,30  a.m.,  and  that  she  lays 
every  day,  and  an  hour  or  so  later  in  the  day  with  every  egg. 
Probably  this  is  not  a  fixed  rule.  It  would  involve  a  midnight 
egg,  or  a  day  missed,  when  there  was  a  full  nest  to  be  laid. 

Then  it  has  been  said  that  it  is  the  "  packing,"  after  driving, 
that  does  the  good,  of  course  by  initiating  cross  breeding;  but 
for  forty  years  at  least  gamekeepers  have  been  changing  eggs 
from  nest  to  nest  and  from  estate  to  estate,  so  that  packing 
would  be  merely  re-mixing  those  that  had  already  been 
separated  by  the  gamekeepers. 

The  greatest  assistance  given  by  driving  is  probably  the 
greater  freedom  from  wounds  of  the  driven  bird.  The  old  bad 
days,  when  we  killed  all  the  birds  that  would  lie,  and  shot  at 


PARTRroGE  BAGS  AND  DRIVING  261 

all  the  others,  were  bad,  because  there  was  no  other  way  of 

getting  a  bag  of  wild  birds ;  but  probably  if  nobody  had  ever 
tried  to  do  so  there  would  have  been  plenty  of  partridges.  In 
other  words,  it  was  bad  shooting  that  destroyed  the  stock.  But 
more  than  this,  partridge  driving  is  liked ;  it  has  caused  much 
greater  attention  to  be  paid  to  the  partridge  than  ever  before, 
because  it  is  so  much  better  sport  than  turnip-trotting,  and  so 
much  more  bag-filling  than  shooting  over  the  majority  of  show- 
bred  or  show-dog  crossed  pointers  and  setters.  It  takes  a 
very  good  dog  indeed  to  please  in  a  turnip-field  and  to  render 
it  unnecessary  to  form  line  to  beat  up  the  partridges.  Besides 
that,  driving  is  a  social  amusement,  whereas  shooting  over  dogs 
is  only  good  when  there  are  but  two  guns  or  less.  The 
popularity  of  the  big  day  extends  to  beaters,  farm  hands,  and 
farmers,  whereas  for  the  old  method  these  people  were  merely 
tolerated.  Toleration  did  not  assist  preserving;  popularity 
does  so. 

Although  a  swerving  covey  of  English  birds  will  present 
a  task  fit  for  a  king,  there  are  very  many  very  easy  driven 
birds,  including  the  majority  of  straight-coming  Frenchmen. 
Besides  this,  the  position  of  the  shooter  makes  them  easy  or 
difficult  as  the  case  may  be.  Put  too  close  under  a  high  fence, 
the  birds  are  difficult ;  put  farther  back,  they  swerve,  or  turn 
back  over  the  beaters.  When  standing  up  to  quite  low  fences, 
the  chances  are  very  easy,  and  when  the  sun  is  in  one's  eyes 
they  are  too  difficult  for  sport.  The  most  beautiful  shooting 
is  when  some  birds  come  over,  and  some  between,  a  row  of 
high  elm  trees  such  as  one  frequently  sees  in  the  Midlands, 
but  less  often  in  the  Eastern  Counties. 

There  is  no  more  beautiful  sport  than  shooting  partridges 
over  good  dogs,  and  it  is  easy  to  get  them  good  enough  for 
the  work  in  wild  country,  where  they  are  almost  exclusively 
employed,  but  it  takes  brains  as  well  as  nose  and  pace  for  a 
dog  to  be  a  help  to  the  two  guns  in  turnips  a  couple  of  feet 
high,  and  such  as  contain  a  hundred  thrushes,  blackbirds,  leverets, 
rabbits,  and  pheasant  poults  to  every  covey  of  partridges.  It  is 
true  that   if  shooters  in    line,  for  sentimental  reasons,  have  a 


262  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

pointer  running  loose,  they  may  call  it  shooting  over  dogs,  and 
any  sort  of  animal  will  do  for  that,  even  if  he  is  a  dog  show 
Champion ;  but  that  is  not  what  the  author  means  by  shooting 
over  dogs. 

If  you  have  a  line  of  guns  to  tread  up  the  game,  dogs  are 
superfluous.  If  you  have  dogs  that  can  find  everything,  then 
a  line  of  beaters  is  superfluous,  and  besides  in  the  way,  too,  for 
it  makes  birds  wild. 

Noise  is  often  said  to  make  partridges  wild,  but  this  is  only 
partially  true.  Noise  in  any  one  direction,  such  as  talking, 
generally  makes  them  fly,  but  any  noises  heard  from  all 
directions  simultaneously  makes  them  lie  like  stones. 

No  country  is  so  difficult  to  drive  as  one  with  small  fields  and 
high  hedges,  especially  if  it  is  also  hilly.  It  is  almost  im- 
possible to  make  the  partridges  know  that  there  is  a  line  of 
beaters  outside  of  their  own  little  field,  and  they  are  very  likely 
to  go  out  at  the  flanks  and  swing  back  behind  the  beaters  in 
the  next  field. 

That  the  fox  is  the  worst  partridge  poacher  in  the  nesting 
season  is  not  questioned  by  those  who  know ;  but  the  plan 
described  in  the  previous  chapter  is  a  very  good  and  the  only 
way  of  securing  many  partridges  in  a  fox  country.  Neverthe- 
less, this  plan  has  been  written  down  in  the  press,  obviously  by 
interested  people,  who  appear  in  all  sorts  of  disguises  in  the 
interests  of  game-food  makers,  who  are  aware  that  if  the 
Euston  plan  of  pheasant  preserving  and  the  Stetchworth  plan 
of  partridge  preserving  were  to  be  commonly  practised,  it  would 
be  all  over  with  game-food  manufacturers.  The  author  first 
described  the  Stetchworth  plan  some  time  before  Mr.  Alington's 
book  appeared,  in  which  he  related  Mr.  Pearson  Gregory's 
wonderful  success  with  partridges  in  the  middle  of  the  Belvoir 
country,  where  foxes  abound.  In  place  of  this  safeguard  against 
foxes,  futile  attempts  have  put  forward  evil-smelling  mixtures 
to  protect  the  nests  ;  but,  as  Mr.  Alington  and  Mr.  Holland 
Hibbert  have  shown,  when  foxes  take  one  doctored  nest  they 
then  hunt /or  the  smell,  and  in  the  experience  of  Mr.  Alington 
the  mixture  was  successful  the  first  year,  but  in  the  next  all 


PARTRIDGE  BAGS  AND  DRIVING  263 

the  dressed  nests  were  taken  and  the  others  left.  That  a  large 
number  of  keepers  may  approve  of  evil-smell  systems,  and 
disapprove  of  the  Stetchworth  partridge,  and  the  Euston 
pheasant,  systems,  has  no  weight  with  those  who  know  that 
there  are  wheels  within  wheels,  which  can  be  specified  if 
necessary. 

That  there  are  smells  which  destroy  or  negative  others,  the 
author  is  sure,  but  he  has  no  belief  in  drowning  one  by  the 
strength  of  another.  No  retriever  can  find  a  dead  bird  if  a 
man  stands  close  to  leeward  of  the  latter  and  to  windward  of 
the  dog's  nose.  Out  of  politeness  to  our  race,  we  may  consider 
this  negatives  the  partridge  scent  and  does  not  merely  drown 
it,  but  then  the  deer  do  not  support  that  view,  and  can  smell 
a  man  much  farther  off  than  a  foxhound  can  smell  a  fox.  The 
question  arises,  What  is  a  strong  smell  to  a  fox,  a  dog,  or  a 
deer? 

A  gamekeeper  can  (because  he  has  done  it  at  Harlaxton, 
in  Lincolnshire)  look  after  15CXD  acres  of  partridge  ground 
and  get  hatched  off  by  the  Stetchworth  plan  1200  eggs, 
and  do  it  single-handed,  so  that  the  expense  that  the  interested 
critics  of  this  system  talk  of  does  not  exist. 

The  fox  has  just  been  condemned  as  a  poacher,  but  all 
the  same  he  is  a  great  friend  of  partridge  preservers,  if  they 
would  only  look  ahead.  The  fox  is  the  only  influence  in  this 
country  that  prevents  half  of  it  becoming  poultry  runs.  He 
takes  his  toll,  and  deserves  it.  Land  will  not  afford  more  than 
a  certain  amount  of  insect  life,  and  young  partridges  cannot 
live  without  it.  If  it  were  not  for  the  foxes,  nearly  every  farm 
and  field  would  be  a  chicken  run,  and  consequently  wild  bred 
partridges  would  be  impossible. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  it  were  not  for  the  game  preserver, 
hunting  would  also  be  impossible  in  provincial  countries  and 
where  money  is  scarce.  No  foxes  could  live  if  the  fields  were 
devoted  to  poultry.  The  farmer's  charges  in  the  absence  of 
game  would  cause  three-parts  of  the  hunts  to  be  abandoned 
in  face  of  enormous  poultry  bills.  Half  the  quarrelling  over 
game  and  foxes  is  exaggerated  in  the  telling,  and  the  rest  is 


264  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

caused  by  a  misunderstanding  of  mutual  interests.  Outside 
the  Shires,  and  perhaps  Cheshire  and  Warwickshire,  hunting 
could  not  exist  without  the  game  preserver ;  and  outside  East 
Anglia  and  the  grouse  moors  game  could  not  exist  without 
foxes,  more  especially  partridges  could  not,  at  least  not  for 
long. 

It  is  quite  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  grey  partridges  are 
interfered  with  by  the  red  legs ;  of  course,  where  dogs  are 
used,  red  legs  are  not  a  blessing,  but  everywhere  else  they 
appear  to  greatly  increase  the  sport.  The  two  varieties  often 
nest  side  by  side,  but  the  grey  partridge  cock  would  not 
tolerate  any  such  proximity  from  his  own  species,  so  that  the 
simplest  plan  of  making  two  partridges  grow  on  one  acre  is 
to  have  both  sorts. 

Straying  away,  in  the  winter  and  the  spring,  from  cold  or 
high  ground,  is  a  great  and  objectionable  habit  of  partridges. 
On  some  estates  nothing  seems  able  to  prevent  it.  In  such 
cases  the  French  penning  system  described  in  the  previous 
chapter  seems  to  be  made  on  purpose. 

The  driving  of  partridges  in  flat  country  is  very  much  more 
easy  than  grouse  driving,  on  account  of  the  hedges.  They 
hide  the  beaters  and  the  guns  from  view  as  both  go  to  their 
places  for  short  drives.  But  these  same  hedges  often  prevent 
proper  flanking  for  long  drives,  and  there  are  a  thousand 
pitfalls  ready  for  the  inexperienced  driver  of  partridges  to 
fall  into.  Of  course  the  chief  factor  in  all  driving  plans  is  the 
wind,  if  there  is  any.  Success  generally  comes  to  those  whose 
minds  and  plans  are  the  most  flexible ;  for  a  plan  that  would 
be  best  one  day  would  almost  certainly  be  the  worst  upon 
another. 

In  a  short  chapter  on  partridges  in  general  it  would  be 
obviously  impossible  to  go  into  the  minute  details  of  driving, 
or  to  specify  as  many  of  the  pitfalls  as  have  come  to  the 
author's  notice.  Broad  principles  briefly  stated  are  all  he  has 
space  for,  and  really  almost  everything  else  alters  with  the 
locality.  First  it  is  necessary  to  drive  the  birds  with  a  view 
to  their  concentration.     That  is  to  say,  every  drive  should  be 


PARTRIDGE  BAGS  AND  DRIVING  265 

arranged  in  such  a  manner  as  to  make  the  next  drive  to  it  as 
perfect  as  possible.  The  guns,  then,  will  be  posted  where  they 
can  do  least  harm  to  the  next  drive — not  necessarily  where 
they  can  do  most  execution  in  the  one  under  consideration. 
Consequently,  the  choice  of  stands  for  any  one  drive  must  be 
regulated  by  the  distance  the  birds  at  the  particular  time  of 
year  are  likely  to  fly  after  passing  and  being  scared  by  the 
line  of  guns.  This  distance  will  grow  longer  each  week  of 
the  shooting  season.  In  September  birds  that  would  be  likely 
to  drop  in  roots  three  fields  behind  the  guns,  might  easily  go 
six,  seven,  or  eight  fields  in  November, 

It  is  impossible  to  drive  partridges  very  far  directly  up  wind, 
and  it  is  almost  impossible  to  turn  them  very  much  when  going 
fast  and  high  down  wind.  Roots  are  even  more  important  to 
big  driving  bags  than  they  are  to  "walking  up."  At  least, 
without  roots  most  of  the  birds  will  come  together,  and  shoot- 
ing will  be  quickly  over  in  each  drive,  whereas,  when  partridges 
can  be  first  driven  into  a  turnip-field,  and  secondly  induced  to 
run,  they  then  become  scattered,  rise  in  small  lots,  and  give 
shooters  and  loaders  a  chance. 

The  nearer  the  guns  can  be  placed  to  the  rise  of  the 
partridges,  the  less  distant  the  latter  will  fly.  In  a  high  fenced 
country  noise  is  often  essential  to  prevent  the  birds  in  one 
field  going  back  over  the  heads  of  beaters  in  the  next.  The 
partridges  generally  decide  where  they  are  going  before  rising, 
or  as  soon  as  they  are  up,  and  consequently  the  flanks  of 
your  line  or  semicircle  of  beaters  will  be  useless  unless  the 
birds  know  of  them  either  before  they  rise  or  the  instant  they 
are  on  the  wing. 

Another  point  to  be  considered  is,  that  partridges  will  not 
drive  backwards  and  forwards  over  the  same  fence  many  times, 
and  if  it  can  be  done,  a  fresh  one  should  be  lined  for  every 
drive.  Often  the  nature  of  the  ground  and  the  disposition  of 
the  hedges  will  not  admit  of  this.  Ideal  driving  possibly 
only  exists  in  the  imagination,  but  if  it  can  be  arranged 
that  for  every  drive  there  is  a  turnip-field  to  drive  out  of 
near   to  the  guns,  and   another  to  drive  into  at  the  distance 


266  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

of  the  birds'  flight  behind  the  guns,  then  particularly  heavy 
killing  ought  to  be  possible  in  proportion  to  numbers  of 
partridges  present. 

When  there  is  no  great  amount  of  wind,  backwards  and 
forwards  drives,  with  the  guns  shifted  up  or  down  the  fence 
slightly  each  time,  are  very  deadly  with  two  sets  of  beaters. 
With  one  set  only,  on  the  contrary,  the  plan  of  taking  the 
birds  all  round  the  beat  in  four  or  more  drives,  according  to 
its  size,  is  a  good  one,  because  it  prevents  either  beaters  or 
"guns"  having  long  waits  or  unequal  distances  to  walk. 
Excellent  driving  results  have  been  obtained  on  an  estate  as 
small  as  500  acres,  but  this  would  not  be  possible  without  big 
root  fields. 

The  best  sanctuaries  for  partridges,  and  those  of  greatest 
assistance  to  driving,  are  newly  planted  larch  and  fir  coverts. 
Where  estate  planting  is  wanted,  then  by  extending  it  over 
a  series  of  years,  instead  of  doing  it  all  at  once,  it  adds  to  the 
encouragement  and  to  safe  nesting-ground  of  partridges  and 
pheasants  too,  but  the  necessity  of  wire  fencing  it  against 
rabbits  renders  it  of  no  use  for  ground  game,  which  is  all  the 
better  for  both  its  true  purposes.  In  a  grass  country  partridges 
will  remain  and  breed  wonderfully  well  if  about  5  acres  of 
wheat  are  cultivated  to  every  200  acres  of  grass  land.  On 
just  such  land  the  author  has  killed  two-thirds  of  a  bird  to 
the  acre  within  twelve  miles  of  Charing  Cross  on  the  north 
side. 

Some  of  the  Hungarian  and  Bohemian  bags  have  been 
as  follows: — In  10  days'  shooting  10  guns  killed  10,000 
partridges  at  Tot-Megyer,  in  Hungary,  and  the  same  season 
the  first  five  of  the  ten  days  yielded  7020  partridges.  This 
was  on  the  estate  of  Count  Karolyi.  No  birds  were  brought 
in  from  elsewhere,  and  the  method  adopted  was  walking  tip. 
But  it  was  in  Bohemia,  at  Prince  Auersperg's  place,  where 
4000  birds  were  killed  in  one  day,  which  leaves  Baron  Hirsch's 
records,  and  all  those  of  England,  in  the  shade. 


VARIETIES  AND  SPECIES  OF  THE 
PHEASANT 

THERE  are  21  so-called  species  of  the  true  pheasant.  Of 
these,  17  are  only  varieties,  with  practically  no 
differences  except  in  colour  and  size.  Naturalists  are  not  con- 
sistent in  their  classifications.  If  the  17  pheasants  that  include 
the  common  and  the  ring-necked  variety  are  species,  then 
all  our  fancy  pigeons  are  species  also,  just  as  our  numberless 
varieties  of  dogs  are.  The  pouter  and  the  fantail  pigeons 
have  more  differences  by  far  than  any  of  these  17  kinds  of 
pheasants,  and  the  St.  Bernard  and  the  Japanese  spaniel  and 
Italian  greyhound  would  all  have  been  received  as  new 
species  had  their  discoverers  been  naturalists.  Indeed,  the  St. 
Bernard  has  structural  differences  from  the  others  about  which 
in  any  other  class  of  animal  naturalists  would  not  hesitate  for 
a  moment.  They  would  make  a  species  of  him  for  his  extra 
toe — that  is,  for  his  double  dew  claw.  But  it  does  not  in  the 
least  matter  whether  differences  are  marked  in  the  index  to 
nature  as  species  or  as  varieties,  since  the  former  term  has 
lost  its  original  meaning,  and  no  longer  suggests  a  specific  act 
of  creation  in  the  origin  of  things. 

What  matters  is  that  the  17  varieties  of  pheasants  are 
supposed  to  be  capable  of  breeding  together  fertile  offspring, 
no  matter  how  they  are  mixed  up. 

But  although  crossing  always  increases  size  in  the  first  few 
generations,  and  notwithstanding  that  every  first  cross  amongst 
these  17  varieties  of  pheasants  has  been  glorified  in  description, 
it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  the  cross  breds  maintain  their 
glory  in  later  generations.  Unfortunately,  they  do  not  revert 
to  one  type  or  the  other,  but  set  up  intermediate  coloration. 

267 


268  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  cock  pheasant  differs 
very  much  from  the  hen  In  the  pigments  within  the  feathers. 
The  difference  we  observe  is  one  of  disposition  of  those 
pigments.  In  the  hen  the  reds,  the  greens,  the  gold  and 
purples  are  mixed ;  in  the  cock  they  are  separated.  In  the 
17  varieties  of  pheasants  there  are  to  be  found  cock  birds 
which  at  every  point  of  the  feathering  have  the  complementary 
colour  to  that  which  is  in  the  same  position  in  some  other 
species.  Even  the  dark  edging  of  the  feathers  is  in  some  races 
green  and  in  the  others  purple.  The  backs  are  in  some  green, 
in  others  red ;  the  breasts  in  some  species  golden,  and  in 
others  green.  One  cannot  object  to  the  introduction  of  any 
of  these  17  species  so  long  as  they  are  kept  distinct.  But  we 
do  not  want  our  pheasants  to  look  as  variegated  as  a  race  of 
mongrels.  The  Mongolian  pheasant  is  said  to  be  more  hardy 
than  our  own  cross  bred,  and  in  that  case  it  would  probably 
suit  us  better  as  a  bird  of  the  coverts,  but  it  drives  away  the 
other  birds  from  the  food,  which  is  a  good  reason  as  well  as 
its  white  wing  coverts  for  not  wishing  to  have  it  mixed  with 
the  home  stock. 

For  some  time  it  was  believed  that  the  Reeves  pheasant 
would  not  produce  fertile  offspring  from  any  of  the  17  sorts 
typical  of  the  common  pheasant,  but  that  is  probably  a 
mistake.  Nevertheless,  if  it  is  true  that  the  hybrids  breed  in  the 
third  season,  any  such  deferred  productiveness  would  not  be 
likely  to  have  the  smallest  effect  on  our  pheasant  stock,  and 
consequently  the  Reeves  pheasant  can  safely  be  turned  out 
in  the  coverts  without  fear  of  changing  the  character  of  our 
good  sporting  birds.  The  same  is  true  of  the  copper  pheasant, 
which,  in  nature  and  Japan,  exists  side  by  side  with  the  green- 
breasted  versicolor,  and  does  not  inter-breed  with  it.  As 
the  versicolor  breeds  freely  with  our  birds,  and  is  but  a 
variety  in  fact  and  only  a  species  by  courtesy  of  naturalists 
to  each  other,  it  is  pretty  certain  that  this  copper  pheasant, 
like  the  Reeves  pheasant,  can  be  safely  turned  loose  in  our 
coverts.  But  the  Reeves  pheasant  is  a  great  runner,  and  it 
is  said  that  when  he  once  does  get  started  upon  the  wing  he 


VARIETIES  AND  SPECIES  OF  THE  PHEASANT    269 

is  apt  not  to  recognise  the  boundary  fence,  and  may  go  20  miles 
on  end.  If  this  is  not  an  exaggeration,  and  probably  it  is,  the 
Reeves  pheasant  would  be  a  most  objectionable  bird.  But  in 
wild  countries  like  Wales  and  Scotland,  where  there  are  hills 
and  hill  coverts,  there  seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  the  Reeves 
would  beat  the  English  bird,  not  only  in  hardihood  and  self- 
reproduction,  but  also  in  flying  to  the  guns  both  faster  and 
higher  than  the  common  pheasant.  It  is  a  bird  that  prefers 
to  run  up  hill,  in  contradistinction  to  the  instinct  of  preservation 
that  induces  the  type  race  of  bird  to  run  down  hill.  The 
Hon.  Walter  Rothschild  has  spent  more  time  and  money  on 
the  pheasant  family  than  anyone  else,  and  probably  he  is 
the  very  best  judge  of  what  would  acclimatise  with  advantage 
and  what  would  not.  With  the  reservation,  then,  that  the 
author  does  not  believe  in  still  further  mongrelising  the  half 
bred  of  our  coverts,  it  is  proposed  to  summarise  Mr.  Rothschild's 
opinion. 

The  pheasants  form  but  one  section  of  the  family 
Phasianidse,  the  second  of  the  four  families  of  the  Gallinae. 
The  limitations  of  natural  history  are  set  forth  by  Mr. 
Rothschild  when  he  says  that  structurally  it  is  impossible  to 
separate  the  partridges  and  the  pheasants,  and  that  the  spur- 
fowls  {Galloperdix)  and  the  bamboo  partridges  {Bambusicold) 
form  connecting  links.  How  true  this  is  may  be  gathered 
from  the  fact  that  Mr.  Harting  described  a  bamboo  partridge 
in  the  Field  recently  as  a  cross  between  a  pheasant  and 
partridge.  These  birds  have  spurs,  but  then  the  author  has 
seen  a  common  partridge  with  spurs  on  both  legs.  The  legs 
were  sent  to  Country  Life  at  the  time,  and  the  spurs  upon 
them  were  sharp  like  a  two-year-old  pheasant's.  Of  the 
pheasants  there  are  60  species  according  to  naturalists, 
divided  into  12  genera.  Of  these,  Phasianus  with  21  species 
is  the  largest,  and  the  only  one  which  concerns  sportsmen 
in  this  country.  There  are  17  of  the  varieties  of  the 
type  pheasant,  including  the  new  species  called  after  Mr. 
Hagenbach.  There  are  11  other  birds  called  pheasants 
which     properly     belong     to     the     peafowl.      These     include 


270  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

7  peacock  pheasants  and  4  Argus  pheasants,  which,  like 
many  others  amongst  the  60  pheasants,  do  not  fly  well,  and 
have  no  place  in  shooting.  The  true  pheasants  are  dis- 
tinguished by  their  long  wedge-shaped  tails  and  by  the  absence 
of  a  crest,  but  these  have  to  be  subdivided  into  the  type  birds 
that  are  really  only  varieties,  and  the  four  that  are  really  as 
well  as  nominally  different  species. 

These  four  are  Phasianus  ellioti  and  Phasianus  kumics,  which 
are  useless  for  sport.  Then  the  copper  pheasant  from  Japan 
{Phasianus  scemmerringi)  Mr.  Rothschild  thinks  eminently  suited 
for  the  coverts.  As  it  is  a  native  of  the  same  ground  as  the 
versicolor  pheasant,  and  neither  seems  to  damage  the  purity 
of  the  other,  it  may  be  accepted  that  its  production  in  our  coverts 
would  not  degenerate  into  crossing  with  the  common  pheasants. 
The  other  of  these  four  species  is  Ph.  reevesii,  or  the  Reeves 
pheasant  from  China,  with  its  6  feet  of  length  and,  on  rare 
occasions,  6  feet  of  tail.  The  worst  that  has  ever  been  said  of 
these  two  last-named  species  is  that  they  fight  badly  and  might 
drive  away  the  other  pheasants,  but  in  the  case  of  the  copper 
pheasant  the  observation  was  only  the  outcome  of  its  behaviour 
in  pens.  Mr.  Walter  Rothschild  thinks  this  bird  more  suitable 
for  mountainous  cold  districts  than  the  common  pheasant  is,  and 
that  it  should  be  given  the  preference  in  Wales  and  Scotland, 
as  altogether  a  hardier  bird  than  the  true  type  pheasant.  In 
this  opinion  he  agrees  with  the  late  Lord  Lilford,  who  was 
by  far  the  best  authority  of  his  time.  Mr.  J.  G.  Millais  wrote  of 
this  bird  from  having  shot  it  at  Balmacaan,  on  Loch  Ness,  and  at 
Guisichan,  near  Beauly,  in  the  same  county.  At  the  former, 
then  the  late  Lord  Seafield's  place,  he  found  the  bird  a  fraud 
and  a  failure,  as  in  the  open  flat  coverts  it  ran  more  than  it  flew, 
and  when  it  was  forced  into  the  element  it  can  make  all  its 
own,  it  flew  low  and  gave  no  sport.  But  at  Guisachan,  Lord 
Tweedmouth's  place,  Mr.  Millais  had  cause  to  regard  the  bird 
as  the  finest  of  all  the  game  birds  that  raced  to  the  guns  over 
the  mountain  pines.  He  described  it  as  leaving  the  common 
pheasants  and  the  blackcocks  flustering  along  behind  at  about 
half  the  pace  of  this  king  of  the  air,  or  comet  of  the  woods. 


VARIETIES  AND  SPECIES  OF  THE  PHEASANT    271 

Truly  sportsmen  cannot  read  Mr.  Millais'  account  without  envy. 
But,  besides  the  speed,  the  way  this  bird  can  stop  itself  is  a 
revelation.  It  does  this  apparently  by  offering  the  full  surface 
of  its  tail,  its  body,  and  its  wings  simultaneously  to  air  resistance  ; 
and  if  Mr.  Millais  is  correct  as  to  its  speed  and  the  power  it 
has  of  stopping  within  a  few  feet,  it  is  a  wonder  that  it  does  not 
break  its  feathei  shafts  as  well  as  itself  by  the  sudden  pressure. 

Of  the  17  type  birds  it  may  be  said  that  a  true  line  of  colour 
distinction  cannot  be  drawn,  and  that  their  markings  run  one 
into  the  other  as  they  are  found  East  or  West  and  North  and 
South.  It  is  well  to  regard  these  two  tendencies  as  different 
geographic  variations,  and  because  the  birds  seem  to  have 
latitude  variations  in  common  whatever  their  longitude  may 
be,  and  longitudinal  variations  in  common  whatever  their 
latitude  may  be,  to  hold  them  all  one  species  with  local  colour 
variations  and  nothing  more.  In  the  West  the  pheasant  tends 
to  redness,  in  the  East  to  greenness,  both  of  back  and  breast. 
The  extremes  are  observed  in  the  old  English  pheasant  and  the 
versicolor  of  Japan.  This  gradation  of  colour  from  East  to 
West  is  not  altered  by  latitude.  But  of  whatever  shade  and 
longitude  the  birds  may  be,  if  they  are  found  in  the  North  they 
have  a  large  quantity  of  white  upon  them,  and  if  in  the  South 
they  have  no  white.  It  is  therefore  possible  to  settle  the 
natural  home  of  the  pheasant  almost  accurately  by  his  color- 
ation. The  old  English  pheasant  is  a  native  of  most  of  Europe 
in  our  time  ;  but  the  Romans  obtained  it  from  Asia  Minor,  and 
it  is  named  by  ornithologists  in  consequence  Phasianus  colchicus. 
In  England  there  are  now  not  any  of  this  breed ;  ours  are 
all  mongrels. 

The  Persian  i^Ph.  persicus)  is  a  near  relation  to  colchicus,  but 
has  very  nearly  white  wing  coverts,  narrower  bars  on  the  tail, 
and  is  dark-red  on  the  sides  of  the  belly.  It  inhabits  West 
Persia  and  Transcaspia,  and  Mr.  Rothschild  thinks  it  a  good 
variety  for  introduction,  as  it  is  hardy  and  flies  fast  and  high. 

A  near  relation  is  the  Afghan  pheasant  {Ph.  principalis),  or 
Prince  of  Wales  pheasant.  It  only  differs  from  the  last-named 
variety  in  its  whiter  wings,  its  maroon  patch  under  the  throat, 


272  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

the  wide  purple  bars  on  the  flanks,  and  in  the  orange-red  upper 
tail  coverts.  Mr.  Rothschild  gives  it  a  good  character  for  im- 
portation, and  those  who  have  shot  it  at  home  speak  of  it  as 
almost  aquatic  in  habit,  and  not  only  able  but  willing  to  swim. 

The  Zorasthan  pheasant,  or  Phasiamis  zerasthanicus,  only 
differs  slightly  in  marking  from  the  above-named  variety — that 
is  to  say,  it  has  plain  brown  scapulars,  and  much  narrower 
borders  to  the  breast  feathers. 

The  Yarkand  pheasant,  or  Ph.  shawi,  differs  from  colchicus  in 
having  a  yellowish-brown  rump  and  whitish  wing  coverts.  Mr. 
Rothschild  recommends  its  importation  via  India  for  our 
English  coverts. 

The  Siberian  pheasant,  or  Ph.  tariminsis,  very  closely 
resembles  the  last-named  variety,  but  differs  in  the  greenish 
rump  and  the  buff  wing  coverts. 

The  Oxus  pheasant,  or  Ph.  chrysomelas,  comes  from  Amu- 
Darya.  It  is  distinguished  for  its  general  sandy-brown  colour 
and  the  very  broad  green  bars  on  all  feathers  of  the  under  side  of 
the  body. 

The  Mongolian  pheasant  has  been  introduced  largely  by 
reason  of  Mr.  Rothschild's  recommendation.  It  is  known  from  all 
the  others  by  the  rich  red  of  the  flanks,  the  green  gloss  of  the 
plumage,  the  very  broad  white  neck  ring  and  white  wings.  It 
is  a  very  large  bird.  There  is  one  point  on  which  it  is  open  to 
doubt  whether  this  bird  has  not  met  more  than  its  meed  of 
praise.  It  is  considerably  heavier  than  the  common  pheasant, 
and  is  said  to  fly  better.  But  the  last  statement  is  a  little 
difficult  to  accept,  for  the  bird  is  not  like  the  Reeves  pheasant, 
different  in  feathers,  structure,  and  proportion  of  wing  to  weight. 
It  is  merely  a  very  big  common  pheasant  differently  coloured 
and  having  everything  in  true  proportion.  It  ought  therefore, 
by  reason  of  its  weight,  to  fly  worse  than  lighter  birds.  For  big 
birds  to  fly  as  fast  as  small  ones  they  require  not  only  the  same 
proportionate  wing  power  and  space,  but  greater. 

Stone's  pheasant,  or  Ph.  eleganSy  is  almost  a  green  bird,  like 
versicolor,  except  upon  the  flanks  and  shoulders.  It  is  not 
well  known. 


VARIETIES  AND  SPECIES  OF  THE  PHEASANT     273 

The  pheasant  of  Tibet,  or  Ph.  vlangalii,  is  pale  sandy  on  the 
upper  parts,  and  has  golden-buff  flanks, 

Perjvalsky's  pheasant,  or  Ph.  strauchiy  differs  from  Stone's 
pheasant  by  its  orange-red  flanks  instead  of  the  dark-green  and 
the  dark-red  scapulars  with  light  buff  centres.  It  is  recommended 
for  introduction  without  much  hope  of  attainment.  Its  home  is 
Gansu. 

The  West  Chinese  pheasant  differs  from  the  ring-necked 
Chinese  bird  by  the  absence  of  a  ring  of  white ;  its  scientific 
name  is  Ph.  decollatus. 

The  ring-necked  pheasant,  or  Ph.  torquatus,  was  introduced 
from  China  to  St.  Helena  about  15 13  A.D.  In  England  its  first 
introduction  is  unrecorded,  but  it  exists  here  no  longer  in  a  pure 
state.  It  is  flourishing  in  New  Zealand,  and  also  in  America. 
In  some  of  the  States,  including  Oregon,  it  has  bred  so  largely  as 
to  be  a  positive  nuisance  to  agriculture. 

Two  more  pheasants,  only  slightly  differing  from  the  ring- 
necked  bird  of  China,  are  Ph.formosanus  and  Pk.  satchennensis. 

The  Japanese  pheasant,  or  Ph.  versicolor,  is  a  beautiful  bird 
with  a  dark-green  breast.  It  was  introduced  by  Lord  Derby  in 
1840,  and  although  the  early  crosses  were  no  doubt  large  and 
beautiful,  in  the  natural  course  of  things,  when  colours  came  to 
blend,  as  they  do  not  at  first,  a  mongrel  coloration  would  have 
been  certain  had  not  the  crossing  been  so  limited  as  to  make  no 
difference. 

Of  these  17  true  type  pheasants  it  is  usual  only  to  take 
account  of  the  cocks.  In  the  above  not  a  word  has  been  said 
of  the  equally  important  hens,  that  are  practically  all  alike, 
which  is  additional  proof  that  these  are  not  species,  and  are  only 
local  varieties,  breeding  a  little  less  true  to  colour  than  the 
varieties  of  fancy  pigeons  and  fancy  fowls. 

The  golden  pheasant  is  not  of  the  same  genus  as  those 
above,  but  is  closely  allied  to  Lady  Amherst's  pheasant.  The 
former  does  not  do  for  a  covert  bird,  because  it  kills  the  much 
bigger  common  pheasant.  The  silver  pheasant  belongs  to 
another  genus,  and  also  is  barred  from  the  coverts  in  consequence 
of  its  greater  superiority  in  fight  than  in  flight. 
18 


PHEASANTS 

IT  is  not  certain  whether  pheasants  are  indigenous  to  this 
country.  It  is  known  that  they  were  cultivated  by  the 
Romans  as  domesticated;  or  semi-domesticated  birds,  and  as 
remains  of  pheasants  have  been  found  in  towns  or  camps  of  the 
Romans  in  Britain,  it  is  assumed  that  those  people  introduced 
the  birds  into  Britain.  It  will  be  observed  that  the  idea  rests 
upon  the  fact  that  the  pheasants  were  not  indigenous  to  Italy. 
But  Italy  is  to  Europe  what  India  is  to  Asia,  the  most  southerly 
country,  and  pheasants  do  not  like  low  latitudes.  The  races  of 
pheasant  most  allied  to  our  own  cross  bred  are  found  from  Asia 
Minor  right  across  the  Continent  to  Japan,  and  it  is  quite 
possible  that  the  Western  race  extended  across  Central  Europe 
to  England.  Obviously  a  strip  of  ocean  is  no  bar  in  Asia,  and 
it  is  not  likely  to  have  been  so  in  Europe,  especially  as  it  is 
said  that  once  the  ocean  did  not  flow  between  Britain  and  the 
Continent.  The  first  feast  of  English  pheasants  mentioned  in 
history  occurred  in  the  time  of  King  Harold.  The  old  English 
pheasant,  as  we  must  call  the  bird  which  preceded  by  looo  or 
2000  or  as  many  million  years  the  introduction  of  the  Chinese 
race  into  England,  was  a  red  bird  upon  the  back  and  the  upper 
tail  coverts,  and  it  had  no  white  ring  round  its  neck.  The 
Chinese  pheasant,  on  the  other  hand,  had  the  band  of  white  and 
greenish  colouring  on  the  back  and  upper  tail  coverts,  and  what 
we  have  done  by  mixing  green  and  red  together  is  precisely 
what  an  artist  does  with  those  two  colours.  He  produces  some 
shade  of  neutral  tint.  Consequently,  our  cock  pheasants  are  only 
handsome  from  coloration  in  regard  to  the  necks  and  heads 
and   the   breasts,  which  the  crossing  has  not  damaged.     The 


PHEASANTS  275 

present  desire  to  cross  with  birds  that  have  white  wing  coverts, 
namely  the  Mongolian  race,  is  liable  to  mix  colours  very  much 
more.  However  beautiful  a  pure  white  may  be  and  is,  it  has 
a  very  bad  effect  on  the  colours  of  fowls  and  ducks.  White 
crossing  has  produced  barndoor  fowls  of  every  hideous  mix- 
ture, and  the  farm-pond  duck  with  its  washed-out  feathering, 
which  when  compared  with  that  of  the  Rouen  and  the  wild 
duck  suffers  by  the  contrast.  The  Prince  of  Wales  pheasant, 
the  Mongolian,  and  even  the  Japanese  versicolor  pheasants, 
are  handsome  birds,  and  may  be  desirable  as  pure  races,  but 
any  intermixtures  of  blood  can  only  take  place  with  the  risk  of 
spoiling  the  glory  of  the  cock  pheasant's  plumage.  The  same 
remark  may  be  applied  to  crosses  with  the  Reeves  pheasant, 
which  are  much  more  difficult  to  bring  about,  because  the  cross- 
bred birds  only  appear  to  come  to  maturity  in  their  third  year, 
so  that  there  is  little  danger ;  for  sportsmen  want  early  maturity 
before  all  things  in  the  pheasant  pens  and  coverts,  where  an 
immature  cock  bird  would  spell  disaster. 

The  system  of  penning  pheasants  as  we  employ  it  came  to 
us  from  France ;  without  its  aid  we  never  should  have  succeeded 
in  making  the  enormous  bags  that  are  now  the  fashion.  One 
thousand  birds  in  the  day  are  now  more  often  killed  than  50 
were  a  hundred  years  ago,  and  there  are  some  places  where  the 
host  tries  to  quadruple  the  1000,  and  nearly  succeeds.  But  the 
author  finds  that  the  general  opinion  is  that  1000  really  tall, 
fast  birds  is  enough  for  anybody,  and  that  when  more  are  killed, 
and  especially  when  great  numbers  are  desired,  the  birds  are  not 
usually  driven  in  a  fashion  to  afford  those  difficult  marks  that 
are  above  all  desired  by  both  bad  and  good  marksmen. 

The  general  way  of  starting  to  preserve  pheasants  is  to  buy 
eggs  from  game  farmers.  The  usual  price  is  from  ^5  to  los. 
a  hundred,  according  to  the  time  of  year.  The  early  eggs  are 
much  the  most  valuable,  and  for  them  is  the  most  demand.  But 
eggs  early  in  April  run  many  risks  that  those  of  early  May 
escape.  That  is  to  say,  the  eggs  may  be  frosted  in  the  pens,  and 
the  chicks  may  suffer  from  a  combination  of  cold  and  wet,  when 
either  one  or  the  other  alone  would  not  injure.     At  the  same 


276  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

time,  it  is  always  unwise  to  set  up  theory  when  nature  is  offering 
us  free  education.  The  survival  of  the  fittest  has  evolved  a  bird 
that  begins  to  lay  generally  about  the  7th  or  14th  of  April ;  that 
begins  to  incubate  from  about  May  ist  to  the  7th,  and  to  hatch 
out  from  about  May  24th  to  ist  of  June.  Obviously  this  is  because 
birds  hatched  much  later  than  this  have  died  out  in  natural 
surroundings,  probably  from  being  unable  to  stand  our  winters 
in  their  immature  state  of  plumage.  No  doubt,  also,  eggs 
laid  much  before  the  earlier  date  have  not  produced  chicks  in 
sufficient  numbers  to  alter  the  habits  of  the  birds.  Various 
kinds  of  forcing  can  be  made  to  extend  the  breeding  period 
at  both  ends,  but  there  is  a  desire  to  increase  the  number  of 
pheasants  reared  by  their  own  mothers  in  the  wild  state,  and 
there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  forcing  of  any  sort  would 
reduce  the  proportion  of  hen  pheasants  capable  of  raising  a  good 
brood  in  the  open  fields.  They  are  not  very  successful,  and  the 
reason  that  has  generally  been  accepted  is  that  they  are  bad 
mothers,  and  go  wandering  aimlessly  on  as  long  as  a  single 
chick  is  left  to  follow.  As  a  matter  of  fact  this  is  not  the  reason. 
The  young  partridges  and  wild  ducks  in  the  rearing-fields  leave 
the  coops  and  hunt  for  food  in  broods,  but  the  young  pheasant 
hunts,  or  rather  wanders,  each  for  itself,  careless  of  the  presence 
of  its  fellows.  This  is  how  it  happens  that  in  the  wild  state  the 
hen  pheasant  cannot  shepherd  her  chicks.  She  cannot,  like 
them,  be  everywhere  at  once.  So  the  thunderstorm  finds  many 
young  unprotected  by  the  mother's  wing;  the  hawks  and  the 
crows  have  no  mother  to  beat  off  before  they  can  dine  on  young 
pheasants,  which  they  have  only  to  find  alone  in  order  to  kill 
with  ease.  But  the  worst  enemy  to  young  pheasants  is  long 
wet  ground  vegetation.  They  have  to  run  about  in  it  to  get 
their  natural  food,  and  if  it  were  not  for  the  frequent  recurrence 
of  the  mother's  brooding  wing  they  would  perish  of  cold.  In 
the  rearing-fields  the  constant  changes  of  young  birds  from  one 
coop  and  foster-mother  to  another  show  how  often  death  would 
overtake  the  lost  birds  were  there  not  a  house  of  call  at  every 
few  yards.  Obviously  any  cross  bred  that  has  the  instinct  to 
hunt  for  food  in  broods  or  collectively,  and  not  in  units,  would 


PHEASANTS  277 

greatly  assist  in  the  spread  and  increase  of  wild  reared  birds. 
In  the  absence  of  any  such  sort,  improvement  only  seems  to  be 
possible  by  means  of  natural  selection,  or  the  survival  of  the 
birds  that  do  not  get  lost  in  the  wet  herbage,  and  in  breeding 
from  them  in  preference  to  those  that  have  been  reared  by  hand. 
But  land  varies  so  much,  that  large  broods,  say,  at  Euston  in 
Suffolk,  would  not  prove  that  the  same  birds  could  have  reared 
a  brood  in  the  clays  of  Buckinghamshire  or  Middlesex,  Sandy 
soil  is  much  the  best  for  game,  not  only  because  water  does  not 
stand  on  the  soil,  but  because  for  some  reason  the  vegetation 
dries  up  so  quickly  after  a  wetting.  It  is  not  the  wet  that  falls 
on  the  chick's  back  that  does  the  damage,  but  that  which  he 
brushes  from  the  grass  as  he  walks  through  it. 

All  questions  of  colour  would  have  to  give  way  before  any 
difference  of  habits  that  would  make  rearing  easier  than  it  is. 
There  is  no  reason  why  pheasants  should  cost  more  to  rear 
than  wild  ducks  and  farmyard  chickens,  except  that  they  are 
more  delicate.  Instead  of  being  fed  upon  meal  of  kinds,  they 
have  to  be  supplied  with  hard-boiled  egg,  new-milk  custard 
made  with  egg,  or  flesh,  or  blood,  in  their  early  stages.  Bread- 
crumbs supply  all  the  early  necessities  of  the  barndoor  fowl, 
and  the  farther  we  go  in  pampering  the  farther  we  shall  have 
to  go.  The  farm  poultry  in  wild  nature  lived  greatly  upon 
insects,  just  as  the  wild  pheasant  does  now.  It  is  to  make  up 
for  the  absence  of  insects  that  so  much  nitrogenous  food  is 
given  to  the  pheasant  chick,  but  as  none  is  supplied  to  the 
domestic  poultry  it  appears  likely  that  pheasants  kept  as 
poultry  are  now  reared  would  in  a  few  generations  become  as 
hardy  and  easy,  because  those  that  could  not  stand  it  would 
die  out.  A  race  of  pheasants  entirely  meal-fed  would  be  of  the 
greatest  possible  value. 

Doubtless  the  losses  at  first  would  be  heavy,  for  the  pheasant 
in  nature  lives  neither  on  corn  nor  seeds  in  its  early  life.  When 
it  is  hatched  in  June,  all  the  seeds  of  the  previous  year  have 
grown  into  plants,  and  none  of  that  year's  plants  will  have  ripe 
seeds  for  a  month  or  more.  So  that  when  theorists  tell  game- 
keepers that  they  should  give  canary  seed,  and  thus  return  to 


278  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

a  state  of  natural  management,  they  are  advising  the  most 
unnatural  management  possible;  but,  all  the  same,  a  very 
convenient  one,  if  it  could  be  done. 

The  present  most  accepted  method  of  feeding  hand-reared 
pheasants  is  to  start  them  on  finely  grated  hard-boiled  egg  or 
custard ;  in  the  second  stage,  to  give  the  latter  mixed  with  fine- 
ground  dry  meal,  in  order  to  stiffen  the  custard  and  render  it 
capable  of  crumbling.  From  this  stage  the  birds  go  on  by 
degrees  to  receive  more  meal  and  less  custard,  until  the  time 
comes  to  feed  them  upon  boiled  oatmeal  and  boiled  rice,  as  the 
state  of  their  bowels  require  a  slight  alterative.  The  oatmeal 
is  relaxingj'and  the  rice  just  the  reverse.  From  this  point  to 
crushed  wheat  is  a  long  jump,  because  the  latter  is  not  boiled 
and  the  two  former  are.  However,  to  make  the  consistency  of 
the  boiled  food  more  breakable  and  less  sticky,  fine  flour  or 
oatmeal  uncooked  will  for  some  time  have  been  shaken  into  it 
as  the  cooked  food  is  pressed  through  a  fine-mesh  metal  sieve. 
The  object  of  this  is  to  prevent  the  food  having  a  stick-jaw 
tendency,  and  thus  remaining  and  drying  upon  the  beaks, 
backs,  and  legs  of  the  birds.  The  usual  practice  is  to  place  the 
food  upon  a  board  for  the  chicks  and  to  wash  the  board 
frequently.  There  is  a  possibility  that  a  quick  way  of  spreading 
disease,  when  once  it  exists  on  the  rearing-field,  is  to  throw 
about  food  on  the  ground.  There  it  mixes  with  the  excreta  of 
the  birds,  and  is  a  possible  although  unproved  source  of  con- 
tamination. Dr.  Klein  proved  that  fowl  enteritis  was  spread 
in  that  manner,  and  perhaps  pheasants  take  their  well-known 
disease  in  the  same  way ;  but  this  has  never  been  investigated 
by  a  bacteriologist,  and  the  constant  assertions  that  pheasant 
enteric  is  the  same  disease  as  fowl  enteritis  is  no  more  than  a 
guess,  and  one  that  is  very  unlikely  to  be  correct.  If  it  were 
so,  the  foster-mothers  would  be  sure  to  die  when  the  pheasant 
chicks  take  the  enteric  disease  and  die  off  in  large  numbers :  only 
one  authentic  case  of  the  foster-mothers  having  died  from  fowl 
enteritis  has  been  reported.  Then  the  chicks  remained  healthy. 
Fowls  nearly  always  remain  healthy  when  50  per  cent,  of  the 
pheasants  die  off.     The  foster-mothers  in  the  coops  will  require 


PHEASANTS  279 

water,  and  it  should  be  boiled  water  given  cold.  It  is  not 
possible  to  leave  water  in  the  pans  and  prevent  the  young  birds 
drinking  it,  so  that  every  precaution  has  to  be  taken  that  the 
water  does  not  introduce  disease.  But  the  chicks  will  not 
require  much  other  liquid  than  that  contained  in  their  cooked 
food.  A  large  proportion  of  the  food  given  after  the  first 
fortnight  should  be  green  vegetable,  given  cooked  or  raw, 
according  to  the  quality,  or  both,  according  to  the  appreciation 
of  it  by  the  birds.  Green  food  and  insects  are  natural  pheasant 
foods  in  the  summer,  when  the  birds  are  young,  and  there  is  no 
reason  why  they  should  be  deprived  of  one  because  they  cannot 
get  the  other.  Enormous  numbers  of  insects  are  always  in 
the  trees  of  the  coverts,  and  it  was  a  habit  of  James  Mayes, 
when  keeper  to  the  late  Maharajah  Duleep  Singh,  to  remove 
his  birds  into  covert  the  instant  they  began  to  look  ill.  He 
told  the  author  that  he  saved  them  by  this  means,  and  as 
mature  and  immature  insects  drop  in  numbers  from  the  trees 
probably  the  change  back  to  natural  feeding  recovered  the  lost 
condition. 

Of  course  pheasants  will  eat  ants'  eggs  greedily;  they 
would  probably  grow  healthy  and  strong  on  this  food  alone, 
just  as  partridges  will.  But  the  insects  do  not  exist  in  sufficient 
numbers  to  feed  as  many  pheasants  as  are  reared.  Whether 
some  few  ants'  eggs  might  be  safely  given  to  pheasants  the 
author  does  not  know,  but  partridges  must  either  be  wholly  or 
not  at  all  fed  upon  them.  The  birds  will  not  look  at  anything 
else  if  they  can  get  some  ants'  eggs,  although  the  numbers  are 
not  enough  to  keep  them.  It  is  usual  to  try  to  do  without  this 
food,  and  only  to  employ  it  in  case  birds  are  off  their  feed  and 
require  a  "  pick-me-up."  Young  sparrows  will  feed  upon  the 
ants  themselves,  but  small  partridges  only  take  the  eggs.  This 
causes  much  more  of  the  food  to  be  required,  and  although  it  is 
generally  free  food,  the  labour  necessary  to  get  enough  makes 
the  free  food  very  much  the  most  expensive. 

The  kind  of  pheasant  pen  required  for  the  birds  to  winter 
in  is  a  large  one — the  larger  the  better.  The  number  of  birds 
wintering  in  it  must  be  left  to  the  judgment  of  the  individual. 


28o  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

It  should  be  of  grass,  and  so  large  that  the  birds'  constant 
treadings  do  not  destroy  the  growth.  A  level  piece  of  ground 
without  shelter  is  to  be  avoided.  Dry  banks,  bushes,  and 
basking  and  dusting  mounds,  as  well  as  a  heap  of  grit,  are 
desirable. 

Some  people  have  had  good  results  by  leaving  the  birds  in 
a  pen  of  this  sort  to  lay,  and  have  found  that  a  number  of  cocks 
amongst  five  times  as  many  hens  have  not  destroyed  all  chances 
of  success  by  their  fighting.  But  the  usual  plan  is  to  make 
small  pens  large  enough  for  each  to  contain  five  hens  and  a 
cock.  Pens  of  4  yards  by  10,  and  6  feet  high,  made  of  wire 
netting,  are  big  enough,  but  they  cannot  be  too  large  for  the 
health  of  the  birds,  and  as  they  last  many  years  without  re- 
moval, if  the  ground  is  dug  up  and  limed  at  the  end  of  each 
laying  season,  the  expense  of  the  first  building  is  spread  over 
fifteen  or  twenty  years. 

These  pens  are  most  cheaply  made  in  close  contact,  for  then 
two  of  the  sides  will  serve  a  double  purpose,  for  each  will  be 
a  boundary  for  two  pens.  For  3  feet  upwards  from  the 
ground  the  pens  should  either  be  turfed  or  made  of  corrugated 
iron,  in  order  to  afford  shelter  and  prevent  war  with 
neighbours. 

Another  kind  of  laying  pen  most  approved  of  late  years, 
although  success  came  before  its  invention,  is  that  of  the 
movable  pen.  These  pens  need  not  be  more  than  a  couple  of 
feet  high,  but  they  have  to  be  covered  over,  whereas  if  the  birds 
have  one  wing  brailed  this  is  not  necessary  with  the  other  kind 
of  pen.  Full-winged  pheasants  damage  themselves  seriously 
by  flying  against  the  wire  netting  roof  of  a  pen,  and  even  when 
roofs  are  made  of  string  netting  the  shock  birds  receive  on 
impact  must  be  nearly  as  bad  as  those  that  kill  netted  grouse 
upon  the  same  kind  of  netting.  The  object  of  these  small  light 
movable  pens  is  to  give  the  birds  fresh  ground  every  day.  But 
the  moving  must  be  an  enormous  undertaking  where  many 
pheasants  are  kept,  and  it  is  conceivable  that  those  who  sell 
half  a  million  eggs  in  the  year,  and  want  5000  pens  for  the 
purpose,  do  not  move  them  very  often. 


PHEASANTS  281 

After  birds  have  begun  to  lay  in  March  and  April,  the  next 
stage  is  to  place  the  eggs  under  hens  in  sitting  boxes.  These 
are  of  two  kinds :  boxes  in  which  the  front  opens  out  to  a 
small  wired-in  network  enclosure  in  which  the  foster-mother 
can  feed  when  she  is  inclined  ;  and  the  other  sort,  in  which  the 
only  opening  is  from  the  top  lid  (which  both  kinds  have),  and 
from  which  the  incubating  broody  has  to  be  lifted  by  hand  and 
then  tethered  to  a  peg  while  she  feeds  and  waters.  This  is  a 
tedious  process  when  there  may  be  from  500  to  1 500  hens  to 
treat  every  day.  It  is  generally  believed  that  the  best  kind  of 
nest  is  one  made  upon  the  bare  earth  under  these  sitting  boxes. 
That  may  very  well  be  where  there  are  no  rats,  but  where  this 
kind  of  vermin  exists  the  author  prefers  a  false  bottom  of  turf 
to  the  boxes,  with  a  real  bottom  of  small  mesh  wire  netting, 
which  in  no  way  interferes  with  the  benefit  eggs  derive  from 
moistened  mother  earth,  but  effectually  prevents  losses  from 
rats,  stoats,  moles,  and  hedgehogs,  although  the  latter  would 
not  be  likely  to  make  subterranean  visits  in  any  case. 

The  pheasant  coop  is  another  article  of  furniture  the 
preserver  cannot  get  on  without.  It  is  quite  a  light,  simple,  and 
handy  contrivance,  with  a  backwards  slanting  roof,  three  boarded 
sides,  no  bottom,  and  a  sparred  front,  the  centre  bar  being 
movable — that  is,  sliding  upwards  through  the  roof.  These 
pens  are  set  out  in  the  rearing-field  before  the  eggs  hatch. 
That  ensures  the  birds  being  brought  from  the  nests  to  dry 
ground.  For  a  few  days  the  chicks  have  to  be  protected  from 
themselves,  and  prevented  from  running  away  from  their  foster- 
parents.  This  is  best  done  by  the  use  of  two  boards  about 
6  inches  high,  which  are  placed  so  as  to  form  a  triangle  with  the 
opening  of  the  coop  as  its  base.  Then  the  coop  must  be  very 
well  ventilated,  for  it  has  to  have  a  shutter,  one  that  is  always 
closed  at  night,  and  the  young  birds  are  best  not  allowed  to 
wander  about  in  wet  grass  before  the  dew  is  off  in  the  morning, 
so  that  they  sometimes  have  to  be  fed,  and  then  again  shut  up 
until  the  morning  sun  has  done  its  work,  but  this  is  only  when 
they  are  very  young. 

The  field  chosen  for  laying  pens,  as   a  matter  of  human 


282  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

choice,  differs  greatly  from  the  ground  the  pheasant  prefers. 
The  latter  is  bog  ground  for  feeding  in,  and  also  very  frequently 
the  dry  grass  patches  or  tussocks  in  the  bog  for  laying  upon, 
and  only  the  coverts  for  roosting.  Human  judgment  not  being 
able  to  supply  all  these  in  one  small  confined  place,  compromises 
by  supplying  neither,  and  giving  a  dry,  sloping,  sunny,  sheltered, 
but  treeless  bare  ground  patch  of  earth,  often  turf  in  the 
beginning,  but  bare  earth  before  the  termination  of  the  laying 
season. 

There  are  many  other  methods  of  providing  for  the  wants  of 
pheasants,  some  of  which  cannot  be  recommended.  There  is 
no  space  to  mention  all,  and  therefore  the  writer  is  obliged  to 
confine  his  remarks  to  those  he  believes  to  be  the  best,  and  those 
he  has  known  to  succeed  up  to  expectations.  But  a  few 
remarks  are  perhaps  necessary  about  some  of  them.  For 
instance,  the  plan  of  having  laying  pens  moved  annually  is  good 
if  suitable  space  can  be  spared.  Wattle  hurdles  have  been  used 
to  make  these  cheap  movable  pens  of  all  sizes.  But  they  are 
objectionable  for  small  pens,  as  likely  to  keep  the  sun  off  the 
ground  without  keeping  the  draught  out.  Indeed,  they  are  very 
draughty  affairs,  and  pheasants  hate  wind,  and  do  not  succeed 
without  sun.  In  order  to  successfully  use  wattle  hurdles  of 
6  feet  square,  the  ground  should  be  large  enough  to  fully  benefit 
by  the  morning  sun's  ray  when  at  an  angle  of  less  than 
30  degrees.  Then,  in  order  to  keep  out  the  draught,  it  is  useful  to 
convert  the  bottom  2  feet  of  the  hurdles  into  wattle  and  daub. 
This  has  the  misfortune  of  making  them  rather  heavy  to  move 
about. 

For  years  the  annual  digging  up  process  was  carried  on 
with  success  at  Sandringham. 

In  order  to  prevent  insects  from  infesting  the  sitting  hens,  it 
is  good  to  have  dusting  sheds,  and  occasionally  to  remove  the 
hens  to  these.  Slacked  lime  and  earth  kept  dry  under  cover 
is  the  best  material  for  this  purpose,  but  if  it  is  necessary  the 
same  results  can  be  attained  by  the  use  of  plenty  of  insect 
powder  in  the  nests. 

Pheasants  in  laying  pens  rarely  get  enough  green  stuff.     It 


PHEASANTS  283 

is  for  this  that  daily  movable  pens  are  the  best,  because  they 
allow  the  pheasants  to  get  grass  shoots,  which,  however,  are  not 
the  most  suitable  kind  of  green  food.  Onions,  lettuce,  cabbage, 
turnip  tops,  turnips  themselves,  and  apples  are  all  useful ;  but  if 
the  grass  is  full  of  clover  none  of  these  will  be  necessary. 
Naturally  everything  depends  upon  the  quality  of  the  grass  and 
whether  the  birds  eat  it  or  not.  Boiled  nettles  are  useful,  but 
vegetable  is  best  given  to  old  birds  uncooked,  except  when 
potatoes  are  used.  They  have  been  known  to  eat  the  fresh 
uncurled  sprouts  of  the  bracken,  but  the  pheasant  farmer  who 
relied  on  this  kind  of  food  would  not  be  likely  to  make  his 
fortune.  Fresh  smashed-up  bone  seems  to  be  necessary  for  the 
well-being  of  laying  birds,  and  of  course  grit — that  is,  small 
gravel,  and  if  this  has  its  origin  in  the  seashore  it  will  probably 
contain  enough  shell  of  sea-fish  to  make  a  supply  of  bone 
unnecessary. 

The  choice  of  food  for  penned  pheasants  will  depend  largely 
upon  prejudice  and  circumstance.  Of  necessity  grain  of  some 
kind  will  be  the  stand-by.  If  it  is  desired  to  keep  the  same  hen 
pheasants  for  laying  for  several  years,  but  little  Indian  corn  will 
be  employed  in  the  best  regulated  establishments.  It  does  not 
matter  that  this  food,  like  acorns,  spoils  the  flavour  of  the  flesh, 
but  it  does  matter  that  the  birds  become  too  fat  inside  for  health. 
Probably  the  first  season  they  do  not  show  a  loss  of  egg  pro- 
ductiveness, but  later  they  do.  Maize  in  the  coverts,  to  keep 
the  birds  at  home  when  they  scramble  for  food  in  every  field,  is 
less  objectionable  than  for  birds  that  do  not  get  much  exercise 
and  live  in  want  of  it.  Barley,  oats,  beans,  peas,  and  wheat  are 
all  useful  in  turn ;  and  besides,  as  the  breeding  season  comes  on, 
a  warm  breakfast  of  cooked  oat  or  barley  meal  is  useful. 
Greaves  are  remnants  from  the  soap  boilers',  and  are  not  very 
reliable  foods ;  but  if  fres/i  meat  can  be  obtained,  a  little  of  it 
stewed  to  rags  in  the  water  in  which  the  food  is  afterwards 
cooked  is  distinctly  useful  in  egg-producing  time,  but  is  not 
necessary  then,  and  certainly  is  not  so  at  any  other  period  after 
the  birds  are  half  grown.  At  the  same  time,  to  make  up  for  the 
absence  of  slugs  to  the  penned  pheasant,  the  author  would  always 


284  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

give  a  little  if  it  could  be  cheaply  obtained.  Very  little  in  the 
way  of  animal  food  comes  amiss  to  the  wild  pheasant,  which 
has  been  known  to  eat  mice,  wire  worms  by  the  thousand,  slugs 
©f  all  sorts,  snails  with  shells  and  snails  without,  frogs,  blind 
worms,  and  young  vipers. 

The  greatest  misfortune  about  penned  pheasants  is  that  they 
take  no  exercise.  As  gallinaceous  birds  they  ought  to  scratch 
for  a  living,  and  that  is  difficult  to  arrange  in  movable  pens  on 
turf.  It  is  quite  possible  that  they  would  be  more  healthy  upon 
ploughed  fields,  especially  if  a  part  of  their  daily  grain  was 
raked  in  before  they  were  removed  to  the  fresh  ground,  but  in 
that  case  they  would  lose  the  plucking  of  grass  and  clover. 

Pens  with  open  tops  and  birds  with  one  wing  clipped  have 
been  recommended  in  order  that  the  wild  cocks  should  visit  the 
penned  hens,  but  whether  it  has  ever  succeeded  or  is  merely  a 
pretty  theory  the  author  is  not  aware :  he  does  know  that  it  has 
often  failed,  and  infertile  eggs  have  been  the  consequence. 

It  is  questionable  whether  the  cocks  go  to  the  hens  as  much 
as  is  believed.  In  the  author's  experience  of  pheasants,  it  has 
been  the  hens  that  have  been  attracted  by  the  crowing  of  the 
cocks.  He  has  known  newly  established  laying  pens  to  draw 
hen  pheasants  in  numbers  to  ground  that  they  never  before 
nested  upon.  Whether  they  would  have  entered  the  pens  if 
they  had  been  open  at  the  top  is  doubtful,  but  many  of  them 
laid  outside  and  had  infertile  eggs.  After  all,  what  is  the  crow 
given  to  the  cock  for  if  he  cannot  make  any  use  of  it  ? 

There  is  some  difference  of  opinion  as  to  whether  most 
success  follows  the  incubation  of  pen  produced  or  of  wood 
produced  eggs. 

This  is  only  to  be  answered  with  reservations.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  90  per  cent,  of  fairly  early  eggs  from  well  kept 
penned  birds  will  be  fertile.  There  are  two  reasons  against  as 
large  a  proportion  from  home  covert  birds.  First,  the  latter  are 
picked  up  less  often,  and  run  more  risk  from  night  frosts. 
Second,  you  may  leave  a  large  proportion  of  cocks  and  yet 
lose  most  of  them  by  their  straying  off  for  miles  with  favourite 
hens. 


PHEASANTS  28? 

Mr.  Tegetmeier,  in  his  book  on  Pheasants,  has  collected 
evidence  from  all  quarters,  and  he  gives  many  good  reasons 
for  not  reducing  the  cocks  below  a  proportion  of  one  to  three 
hens.  Mr.  Millard  has  lately  expressed  very  strong  views 
against  leaving  fewer  than  eight  hens  to  one  wild  cock.  But 
perhaps  Mr.  Millard's  life,  in  connection  with  game-meal,  is  not 
precisely  that  which  would  endow  him  with  the  most  reliable 
information  from  all  directions.  Be  this  as  it  may,  it  is  within 
the  experience  of  the  author  that  when  one  cock  to  five  hens 
has  been  his  accomplished  aim,  he  has  had  the  satisfaction  of 
seeing  straying  pheasants  in  every  part  of  an  estate  all  breeding 
good  broods,  but  the  disappointment  of  knowing  that  every 
cock  had  left  the  home  covert  and  that  many  hens  were 
laying  infertile  eggs  there.  Probably  there  are  limits  to  the 
distance  a  hen  bird  will  go  to  the  crow  of  a  cock.  Here  was 
a  case  in  which  not  one  egg  per  cent,  was  good  in  the  covert, 
but  out  in  the  fields  a  mile  or  two  away  it  was  quite  different. 
Every  egg  was  fertile  and  produced  its  chick. 

The  coverts  are  not  really  natural  places  for  pheasants  to 
lay  in,  any  more  than  they  are  for  partridges.  Generally,  when 
pheasants  begin  to  lay  the  fields  have  too  little  covert  to  tempt 
them  to  make  nests  in  the  open.  Then  they  resort  to  the 
hedgerows,  and  when  these  are  scarce,  as  they  are  in  the 
stone  wall  districts,  many  more  birds  lay  in  the  coverts  than 
would  do  so  if  there  was  vegetation  outside.  However,  in  a 
stone  wall  and  partridge  country,  the  author  has  seen  as  many 
pheasants'  as  partridges'  nests  mown  out  of  the  Italian  rye  grass 
and  clover-fields.  But  these  were  late  birds,  because  this  mow- 
ing rarely  begins  before  June  15th,  and  many  pheasants  have 
hatched  out  before  then.  If  it  could  be  planned  that  all  the 
pheasants  left  could  be  prevented  from  straying,  then  fewer 
cocks  would  possibly  do,  and  this  might  occur  in  a  grass  country. 
But  in  a  corn  district  the  birds  will  stray,  and  when  half  the 
cocks  have  departed,  as  they  will  with  one  or  two  hens  to  each, 
those  left  would  not  have  the  proportion  of  hens  aimed  at ;  but 
where  three  hens  were  attempted  to  be  left  to  each  cock, 
and  two  of  them  went  away  with  each  of  half  the  males,  the 


286  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

other  males  left  behind  would  have  four  hens  each ;  where 
five  hens  were  designed,  the  real  proportion  in  the  cover  would 
be  eight  hens  to  a  cock ;  and  where  the  design  was  to  leave 
eight  hens,  the  real  proportion  would  be  fourteen  hens  to  a  cock 
after  the  strayers  had  left  in  similar  proportions. 

It  may  be  replied  that  keepers  should  prevent  straying, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  just  what  is  wanted,  and  it  has  come 
to  be  the  best  and  most  fashionable  preservation  to  en- 
courage it. 

Those  who  know  best  act  in  the  belief  that  every  cock 
pheasant  that  gets  away  with  one  or  two  hens  will  become  the 
sire  of  one  or  two  good  broods,  and  they  know,  too,  that  those 
that  remain  with  many  more  in  coverts  have  not  the  breeding 
instinct  fully  developed,  and  that  if  they  have  chicks  the  com- 
petition for  natural  food  will  be  too  great  for  the  welfare  of  any. 
In  other  words,  the  old  birds  will  eat  up  the  insect  life  before 
the  chicks  come. 

Pheasant  preservers  have  in  their  minds  the  preservation  at 
Lord  Leicester's,  at  Holkham,  in  Norfolk  ;  that  also  at  Euston, 
the  Duke  of  Grafton's,  in  Suffolk  ;  that  at  BeauHeu,  in  Hamp- 
shire, and  have  become  aware  that  with  proper  encouragement 
on  suitable  land  the  wild  reared  pheasant  is  enough  of  itself, 
and  on  any  land  a  great  assistance  to  the  game  stock. 

The  most  noted  success  has  occurred  at  Euston,  where 
about  6000  wild  pheasants  have  been  shot  in  a  season.  This 
is  the  most  noted,  because  the  system  adopted  there  advanced 
game  preserving  in  general  by  one  step. 

The  advance  occurred  in  this  way.  When  the  Duke  of 
Grafton  succeeded  to  the  property,  he  told  Blacker  the  keeper 
to  stop  the  hand  rearing  of  pheasants.  The  keeper,  however, 
begged  for,  and  obtained,  a  compromise.  This  was,  that  he 
might  have  hens  under  which  to  place  eggs  removed  from 
pheasants'  nests  in  danger,  until  he  could  find  other  pheasants' 
nests  in  which  to  place  them.  It  has  resulted,  in  practice, 
in  keeping  eggs  until  the  shell-chipping  stage  under  the 
domestic  hens,  and  then  in  placing  them  under  pheasants 
having  their  own  eggs  in  the  same  state  of  incubation.     This 


PHEASANTS  287 

has  succeeded  in  producing  big  hatchings  of  pheasants,  many- 
more  than  the  birds  would  lay  eggs  in  the  ordinary  course. 
But  the  Duke  of  Grafton  has  denied  that  bad  or  dummy  eggs 
have  been  used  at  Euston,  and  consequently,  although  Blacker 
pointed  the  way,  he  did  not  consummate  the  latest  phase 
of  pheasant  preservation,  in  which  all  the  birds'  eggs  are 
removed  as  laid,  and  are  incubated  under  hens,  while  the 
female  pheasant  is  kept  sitting  on  "clear"  eggs,  in  order  to 
be  ready  to  take  a  big  batch  of  chipped  eggs  as  soon  as  they 
are  ready. 

The  object  of  this  plan  is  that  if  the  bird  is  killed,  or  is  made 
to  give  up  sitting  by  bad  weather,  the  eggs  are  nevertheless  not 
injured,  but  are  merely  passed  on  to  be  divided  amongst  other 
birds. 

It  has  been  said  that  there  is  no  advantage  in  this  plan, 
but  one  cannot  help  thinking  that  only  lazy  keepers  and  their 
friends  who  sell  game  foods  would  say  so. 

The  argument  is  that  the  nests  are  not  in  danger  from  foxes 
until  just  at  the  time  of  hatching.  It  is  said  that  the  birds  lose 
their  scent  when  incubating,  and  that  only  when  the  chicks 
break  the  shell  is  there  any  scent  from  the  nests.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  there  is  very  little  scent  from  breeding  birds  whether  they 
are  sitting  or  laying,  but  to  say  there  is  none,  and  that  foxes 
cannot  find  them,  is  a  total  mistake. 

Nests  are  taken  by  dogs  and  foxes,  and  by  hedgehogs 
and  rats,  at  all  times  of  the  incubating  period.  If  the  birds 
gave  out  as  much  scent  as  they  do  at  other  periods,  there  would 
be  no  nests  left  in  a  fox  country.  But  nature  and  the  birds, 
between  them,  do  defeat  the  foxes  and  the  vermin  in  a  fair 
proportion  of  cases.  It  has  been  affirmed  that  incubating  alters 
their  system,  and  that  the  scent  that  before  passed  out  through 
the  skin  passes  out  with  the  excreta  when  the  birds  incubate. 
That  is  to  say,  that  there  is  a  total  change  of  system  brought 
about  by  the  change  of  instinct.  The  stronger  scent  from  the 
excreta  of  sitting  birds  has  been  advanced  as  a  proof  of  this. 
The  author  will  not  discuss  this  theory  or  deny  it,  but  he  is 
certain   that   the  whole  loss  of  scent  can  be  accounted  for  in 


288  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

another  way.  There  is  perhaps  a  change  of  scent  in  breeding 
creatures.  To  explain  this,  in  a  doubtful  way,  it  has  been 
affirmed  that  in  gestation  the  superfluous  essence  of  a  beast 
finds  a  use  in  being  drained  by  the  blood  to  the  embryo. 

In  birds,  however,  if  they  are  discovered  off  the  nest,  your 
pointer  will  frequently  point  them,  but  will  not  be  able  to  do 
so  when  they  are  upon  their  eggs.  The  pointer  is  not  a 
close  hunter  like  the  fox,  the  terrier,  or  the  sheep-dog,  all  of 
which  occasionally  find  too  many  sitting  birds.  But  that 
which  most  negatives  the  change  of  system  theory  in  birds 
are  two  facts.  One,  that  off  the  nests  to  feed  the  birds  have 
scent;  and  the  other  is,  that  at  any  time  of  the  year  the 
birds  have  power  to  withhold  their  scent  by  merely  crouch- 
ing tight  to  mother  earth,  holding  in  their  feathers  and 
remaining  motionless.  The  author  has  been  one  of  a  party 
when  the  best  dogs  then  in  existence  totally  failed  to  find 
a  wounded  grouse.  Then  it  was  resolved  to  lunch,  and  dogs 
were  dropped  or  coupled  up  where  they  were.  Towards 
the  end  of  lunch,  one  of  the  dogs  was  observed  to  be  pointing 
downwards  with  its  nose  not  6  inches  from  the  ground  upon 
which  lay  the  wounded  grouse.  That  is  to  say,  it  had  remained 
immovable  and  scentless  within  a  yard  of  these  crack  dogs  for 
more  than  half  an  hour.  These  dogs  were  the  very  best 
amongst  the  most  successful  field  trial  winners  of  the  time, 
and  to  doubt  that  they  had  remarkable  noses  would  seem 
absurd  if  their  names  were  mentioned.  Some  of  them  had 
won  by  finding  game  lOO  yards  over  the  backs  of  their 
competitors.  But  there  was  absolutely  no  scent  from  that 
bird  until  it  became  exhausted.  Nor  is  this  unusual.  A  falcon 
generally,  and  an  artificial  kite  sometimes,  will  make  unwounded 
birds  crouch  like  this,  and  they  too  will  often  give  out  no  scent 
whatever.  At  other  times  dogs  will  be  only  able  to  detect 
the  foot  scents  made  before  the  birds  were  scared  into  close 
lying.  If  there  could  be  any  doubt  about  the  noses  of  the  dogs 
the  author  has  shot  over,  he  would  not  dare  to  write  like  this ; 
but  the  best  dog  men  of  the  present  time  will,  he  knows,  support 
him  when  he  says  there   never  have  been   better  nosed  ones. 


PHEASANTS  289 

Consequently,  it  is  affirmed  that  birds  can  not  only  reduce 
their  scent  at  will,  but  wholly  suppress  it,  for  a  time  at  any  rate. 
They  can  only  do  this  when  motionless,  and  this  seems  a 
sufficient  explanation  of  why  all  birds  are  not  found  on  the 
nests  by  foxes  and  vermin.  The  greater  difficulty  seems  to  be 
to  discover  why  so  many  are  found  ;  but  as  even  Jove  sometimes 
nods,  it  may  be  that  the  partridge  and  the  pheasant  does  so 
too,  and  the  slightest  movement  appears  to  be  fatal  when  scent 
means  death.  One  thing  it  is  difficult  to  explain :  How  is  it 
that  the  breath  does  not  betray  the  presence  of  the  game  ?  The 
otter  can  be  hunted  down  the  river  by  the  bubbles  of  breath 
that  rise  from  him.  The  submerged  moorhen  and  wounded 
duck  can  be  unerringly  found  by  the  dog  in  the  same  way 
and  by  the  same  means.  Is  it  possible  that  birds  can  sub- 
sist without  breathing  for  periods  that  would  be  fatal  to 
ourselves?  The  author  expresses  no  opinion,  but  there  is 
a  total  absence  of  scent  upon  occasion  to  account  for;  this 
entire  absence  is  rare  either  during  incubation  or  at  other 
times. 

Those  who  think  there  is  no  advantage  to  be  derived  from 
removing  the  eggs  into  safety  during  incubation,  say  that  there 
is  no  danger  because  there  is  no  scent.  Yet  one  of  them  at 
least,  namely  Mr.  Millard,  advises  the  use  of  Renardine  to 
prevent  the  danger  which  scent  causes. 

Mr.  Alington,  the  author  of  Partridge  Driving,  describes 
how  Renardine,  the  preparation  in  which  Mr.  Millard  is 
interested,  was  effective  in  keeping  off  foxes  from  the  partridges' 
nests  one  year,  but  was  actually  the  attraction  to  them  the 
next.  Mr.  Holland  Hibbert  had  a  similar  experience.  Mr. 
J.  Geddies,  of  Collin,  Dumfries,  wrote  to  one  of  the  papers  re- 
counting similar  misfortunes.  There  have  been  plenty  of  letters 
written  by  keepers  giving  contrary  views,  but  probably  the 
papers  have  exercised  a  wise  discretion  in  not  publishing  them. 
It  would  be  unusual  if  the  makers  could  not  get  testimonials 
from  a  number  of  their  clients,  and  they  certainly  would  not 
ask  those  to  state  their  opinions  who  were  dissatisfied. 

We  have  to  remember  that  Messrs.  Gilbertson  &  Pages' 
19 


290  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

representative  would  not  be  commercial  if  he  were  impartial, 
and  that  the  spread  of  what  is  called  the  Euston  system  would 
obviate  the  necessity  at  once  for  Renardine  and  for  the  more 
important  and  more  useful  game  foods  sold  by  the  firm 
named  above. 

Another  objection  to  protecting  nests  by  evil-smelling 
substances  or  liquids  is,  that  men  can  smell  them  too,  and 
if  it  took  a  fox  a  year  to  know  that  a  peculiar  sensation  to 
his  olfactory  nerves  meant  partridge,  it  would  not  take  a 
reasoning  being  a  day  to  do  so.  Indeed,  with  this  guide  to 
nests,  the  stealing  of  eggs  could  be  conducted  by  night  as  well 
as  it  is  now  by  day.  Another  so-called  prevention  of  foxes 
consists  in  small  pieces  of  metal  covered  with  luminous  paint, 
but  this  again  is  open  to  precisely  the  same  human  objection 
as  the  other. 

Scent  is  very  little  understood,  but  there  is  no  reason  why 
a  non-smelling  volatile  substance  should  not  be  discovered 
some  day  that  will  combine  with  the  volatile  essence  of  game 
and  neutralise  it,  just  as  the  scent  of  ozone  is  neutralised  in 
the  presence  of  carbonic  acid  gas.  Ozone  is  only  oxygen  in 
a  peculiar  molecular  form.  When  one  atom  amalgamates  with 
the  carbonic  acid,  the  others  become  simple  oxygen  again, 
and  as  part  of  the  air  have  no  scent.  An  essence  that  will 
act  in  some  such  way  towards  the  scent  of  sitting  birds 
appears  to  be  desirable  in  the  interests  of  game  and  foxes. 
But  even  if  it  were  discovered,  it  would  do  nothing  to  save  the 
nests  in  heavy  rain,  when  every  depression  in  the  ground  is 
flooded,  and  when  partridges,  grouse,  and  pheasants  are  forced 
to  abandon  incubation. 

It  is  difficult  to  suggest  when  precisely  it  was  discovered 
that  partridges  would  permit  themselves  to  be  interfered  with 
upon  the  nest. 

The  credit  has  been  given  to  Marlow,  Lord  Ashburton's 
keeper  at  The  Grange.  The  author  has  no  reason  to  dispute  the 
credit,  which  is  probably  properly  bestowed.  At  any  rate, 
Marlow  made  Hampshire  famous  for  partridges,  and  for  years 
held  the  record  for  a  day's  as  also  for  a  three  days'  bag,  and 


PHEASANTS  291 

but  for  hand  rearing  at  Houghton  he  would  have  held  it  for 
four  days  also,  and  entirely  witJiout  hand  rearing.  This  is  not 
the  place  to  discuss  partridges,  except  for  the  fact  that  the  use 
of  dummy  and  clear  eggs  for  those  birds  has  been  erroneously 
attributed  to  Euston.  Really  it  was  an  advance,  and  a  very 
great  advance,  on  the  Euston  plan.  But  pheasants  have  been 
handled  on  the  nests  by  careful  and  clever  keepers  for  many 
years,  although  it  appears  to  be  only  recently  that  it  has  come 
to  be  known  that  partridges  could  also  be  treated  familiarly,  if 
proper  precautions  were  taken.  The  principal  of  these  is  not  to 
attempt  to  touch  the  nest  with  the  bird  upon  it  until  she  has 
been  sitting  close  for  three  days  at  least,  and  then  to  make  no 
sudden  movement  when  approaching  or  handling  the  nest.  If 
these  points  are  attended  to,  the  bird  will  not  leave  her  nest  far, 
if  she  leaves  it  at  all,  and  will  soon  come  back  upon  the  retreat 
of  her  supposed  enemy. 

But  whether  this  system  of  egg  preservation  is  partially 
practised  or  the  eggs  are  wholly  left  to  chance,  they  should  all 
be  marked,  either  with  indelible  or  invisible  ink.  The  former 
plan  is  of  the  most  use  in  preventing  egg-stealing,  and  the 
latter  is  the  most  useful  in  bringing  home  the  theft,  and  perhaps 
in  ridding  a  neighbourhood  of  an  undesirable.  The  invisible 
ink  shows  up  as  soon  as  eggs  marked  with  it  are  inserted  in  an 
appropriate  solution. 


BRINGING  PHEASANTS  TO  THE  GUNS 

THERE  are  some  places  in  which  it  would  be  almost 
impossible  to  have  pheasants  and  not  have  sport.  The 
desire  is  to  shoot  pheasants  that  are  difficult  up  to  a  certain  degree, 
but  no  farther.  For  instance,  in  a  flat  country  one  cannot  make 
the  birds  fly  too  high  to  please  sportsmen,  and  in  a  hill  country 
it  is  difficult  to  prevent  them  from  flying  too  high.  The  way 
pheasants  are  driven  to  the  guns  at  Holkham  seems  to  please 
all  shooters,  and  Lord  Leicester's  management  has  always  been 
held  up  as  a  model  of  woodcraft.  The  park  at  Holkham  is 
very  large,  is  surrounded  by  a  wall,  and  contains  within  its  area 
an  arable  farm.  Around  the  park  inside  the  wall  run  coverts, 
and  the  first  plan  of  action  is  to  drive  the  pheasants  forward  to 
small  elevated  woods,  and  then  to  place  the  guns  between  the 
birds  and  their  homes.  In  some  places  the  guns  are  posted 
three  deep.  It  is  the  height  of  these  rising  places  that  makes 
the  shooting  there  so  good.  But  very  much  time  is  saved  by 
the  plan  adopted  by  Lord  Leicester  of  not  shooting  at  pheasants 
until  they  have  been  driven  into  the  right  spot.  This  not  only 
saves  the  time  too  frequently  occupied  elsewhere  by  stopping 
to  look  for  game  as  the  line  should  be  advancing,  but  also 
obviates  the  necessity  of  all  the  ground  being  hunted  over  for 
wounded  pheasants  the  day  after  the  shoot.  It  is  a  very  clean 
performance  in  every  way,  and  anyone  who  wants  to  lay  out 
pheasant  coverts  cannot  do  better  than  make  a  visit  of  inspec- 
tion to  Holkham,  by  Lord  Leicester's  leave.  But  the  laying  out 
of  pheasant  coverts  is  like  planting  a  tree.  It  is  true  that  a  tree 
grows  while  its  planter  sleeps,  and  is  therefore  economic ;  but  it 
is  also  true  that  an  oak  grows  when  its  planter  sleeps  the  long 

292 


BRINGING  PHEASANTS  TO  THE  GUNS         293 

sleep,  and  therefore  it  is  an  investment  for  posterity.     So  also  is 
a  pheasant  covert  in  a  less  degree. 

The  real  test  of  woodcraft  arises  when  coverts  are  flat  and 
there  are  no  tall  trees.  Then  it  is  still  possible  to  make 
pheasants  fly  high  enough  for  anyone,  provided  a  few  favourable 
conditions  exist.  Before  referring  to  these,  it  may  be  well  to 
say  a  word  on  the  character  of  the  pheasant ;  for  it  is  only  by 
knowing  this  that  a  shooter  can  make  sure  of  getting  the  birds 
to  behave  as  they  are  required  to  in  unexpected  or  unfavour- 
able conditions.  The  pheasant,  then,  is  the  most  timid  of  game 
birds ;  whether  he  has  been  hand  reared  or  is  of  wild  bred 
origin,  this  character  clings  to  him.  He  is,  besides,  as  super- 
stitious as  a  young  lady  alone  in  a  haunted  house.  He  is 
frightened  at  any  material  object,  but  he  is  much  more  afraid 
of  the  unseen  and  suspected  enemy.  In  the  pheasant  pens 
some  cocks  get  very  familiar  with  their  feeders,  and  will  even 
spar  at  and  wound  them  with  their  spurs ;  possibly  they  think 
that  this  treatment  is  the  influence  that  brings  the  food.  The 
same  bird  that  attacks  a  strong  bearded  giant  of  forty  within 
the  bars  would  go  frantic  with  fear  if  an  unknown  child  of  three 
summers  toddled  up  to  the  outside  of  the  bars  of  the  pen.  In 
the  coverts  the  bird  is  still  the  same  creature  of  impulse.  If 
you  make  a  noise,  he  will  run  before  you,  for  he  understands 
perfectly  well  what  is  making  the  noise;  but  if  you  move 
forward  silently,  and  come  upon  the  pheasant  unawares,  he 
will  not  run,  but  will  either  crouch  and  sit  tight,  or  fly,  and  very 
likely  go  back  over  the  head  of  his  disturber.  Indeed,  it  is 
generally  as  easy  to  guide  a  lot  of  pheasants  as  a  motor  car,  and 
much  more  so  when  the  latter  skids.  Pheasants  do  not  skid ; 
they  do  nothing  for  nothing,  and  everything  is  done  for  a  very 
good  reason.  Theirs  are  not  chance  movements  at  any  time. 
Knowing  that  a  pheasant  is  superstitious,  it  is  exceedingly  easy 
to  prevent  him  from  going  on  foot  where  he  is  not  wanted,  but 
he  is  only  superstitious  as  long  as  he  is  on  foot.  Noises  made 
by  hidden  "stops"  will  have  no  effect  whatever  upon  him  the 
moment  he  gets  upon  the  wing.  Then  he  must  see  in  order 
to  fear. 


294  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

These  traits  may  all  be  made  use  of  in  causing  birds  to 
fly  high  where,  without  artifice,  they  would  not  rise  lo  yards. 

For  instance,  assume  that  it  is  wished  to  beat  a  covert  which 
has  pheasants  and  possesses  only  a  few  trees  for  roosting,  and 
none  that  will  make  a  bird  mount  to  get  over  them.  That  does 
not  matter.  Out  of  just  such  a  covert  the  author  has  seen  the 
most  pretty  pheasant  shooting.  The  way  of  it  was  this.  All 
the  birds  were  run  out  into  an  adjoining  broom-field,  from  which 
in  the  ordinary  way  the  pheasants  could  have  been  driven  back 
to  cover  with  the  beaters  re-starting  at  the  other  side  of  them, 
and  at  the  end  of  the  field  farthest  from  the  covert,  without 
any  of  the  shooting  being  more  than  moderate  in  difficulty.  In 
the  ordinary  way  of  beating,  stops  would  have  prevented  the 
pheasants  running  out  at  the  far  end  of  the  broom-field,  and 
when  the  beaters  went  round  to  join  these  stops,  leaving  the 
guns  under  the  wood  and  on  the  field  side  of  it,  the  trouble 
would  begin,  because  in  this  case  the  pheasants  would  never  fly 
very  high.  But  a  totally  different  complexion  can  be  given  to 
this  shooting  by  a  very  slight  alteration  of  the  plan  of  campaign. 
In  the  first  place,  instead  of  half  a  dozen  boys  being  sent  round 
to  stop  the  pheasants  from  running  clean  through  the  broom- 
field,  a  few  of  the  most  trustworthy  men  are  sent  on  this 
business,  with  instructions  to  tap  sticks  occasionally,  but  to 
speak  not  at  all,  and  above  all  never  to  show.  The  object  is  to 
prevent  the  birds  finding  out  what  is  making  the  tapping  noise, 
and  if  they  see  boys  they  will  know  directly  what  is  the  cause. 
By  this  means  the  other  side  of  the  field  of  broom  farthest 
away  from  the  covert  is  converted  into  a  mysterious  land,  one 
into  which  no  self-respecting  pheasant  will  enter  on  any  account. 
Having  run  out  the  pheasants  into  the  broom,  and  placed  the 
guns  between  the  field  and  the  wood,  instead  of  driving  the 
pheasants  back  towards  the  wood,  the  beaters  will  be  most 
successful  in  making  pheasants  fly  high  if  they  attempt  to  drive 
them  on,  past  the  mystery  men  at  the  farther  end  of  the  field. 
Nothing  WxW.  make  the  birds  go  :  they  will  all  come  back  to  their 
own  covert ;  but  instead  of  rising  wild  and  flying  low,  they 
are  now  as  it  were  between  the   devil  and  the  deep  sea.     As 


BRINGING  PHEASANTS  TO  THE  GUNS         295 

they  dare  not  face  the  spirit  worid,  or  the  unknown  quantity, 
the  more  they  are  frightened  by  the  advancing  beaters  the 
better  for  their  flying.  It  is  one  of  the  few  cases  where  noise  is 
better  than  silence  in  driving  game.  The  more  the  noise  the 
closer  the  birds  will  lie,  and  the  closer  they  lie  the  higher  they 
will  rise,  in  order  to  get  back  over  the  heads  of  their  mortal 
enemies,  whom  they  hold  dangerous  in  exact  degree  to  their 
proximity.  Then,  when  the  pheasants  have  gone  straight  up 
and  turned  back  over  the  noisy  beaters,  they  see  the  guns 
between  them  and  home,  which  has  the  effect  of  keeping  them 
from  sinking  as  they  go  homeward,  and  often  makes  them  rise 
higher  still. 

If,  besides  making  use  of  this  plan,  including  driving  the 
birds  away  from  home  on  their  feet  and  back  to  headquarters 
on  the  wing  (which  is  the  recognised  principle),  the  last  opera- 
tion can  be  performed  down  wind  and  in  a  breeze,  the  success 
of  the  scheme  will  be  enhanced,  but  it  does  not  depend  for 
success  upon  those  conditions. 

Every  shooter  professes  to  despise  pheasant  shooting  unless 
the  birds  are  converted  into  good  "  rocketers."  But  there  is  a 
little  doubt  what  this  term  conveys  to  different  sportsmen.  The 
author  has  seen  sportsmen  professing  the  faith  of  the  rocketer, 
already  mentioned,  supremely  happy  when  standing  50  yards 
outside  a  covert  and  slaying  the  birds  that  rise  in  the  corner 
no  farther  away.  Possibly  the  term  might  originally  have  been 
used  to  imply  a  bird  that  had  risen  straight  up,  but  the  author 
does  not  remember  its  use  in  that  sense.  For  thirty  years  it 
has  meant  to  sporting  ears  a  bird  which  has  risen  high  a  long 
way  in  front,  and  comes  with  the  impetus  gathered  in  long  flight 
over  the  head  of  a  shooter.  If  at  that  moment  the  bird  is 
sinking  slightly  on  outstretched  motionless  wings,  it  is  none  the 
less  a  rocketer.  The  late  Bromley  Devonport's  chaff  about  the 
sportsman  who  preferred  to  seek  the  rocketer  in  its  lair  has 
doubtless  lost  its  meaning,  but  all  the  same  those  who  surround 
the  corner  of  a  covert  in  order  to  shoot  just  risen  or  just  rising 
pheasants  are  truly  cornering  the  pheasant,  but  not  the 
rocketer. 


296  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

How  far  a  pheasant  should  come  in  order  to  get  its  best 
impetus  is  rather  a  difficult  question.  Clearly  it  must  not  be  so 
far  as  to  make  the  bird  begin  to  look  out  for  a  place  to  alight. 
That  is  to  say,  it  must  be  under  600  yards  in  most  cases ;  but 
that  does  not  assist  very  much.  Probably  the  best  distance 
from  the  rise  always  alters  with  circumstances,  but  there 
seems  to  be  no  reason  for  extending  it  beyond  the  midway 
distance  between  the  first  two  "  sailing  "  periods. 

The  pheasants,  in  common  with  grouse  and  partridges,  seem 
to  object  to  meeting  more  than  a  certain  air  resistance.  When 
they  have  got  up  to  a  speed  at  which  the  air  resistance  becomes 
unpleasant,  they  hold  their  wings  out  still,  and  sail  or  float  for 
some  distance  before  renewing  their  wing  vibrations.  If  they 
are  shot  before  this  floating  occurs  for  the  first  time,  they  have 
not  come  to  their  full  speed.  If  after,  they  probably  have  come 
to  it.  If  game  is  making  up  hill,  the  floating  occurs  much  later 
for  the  first  time  than  it  does  when  the  direction  is  horizontal  or 
down  hill.  It  is  possible  then  that,  speaking  strictly,  a  pheasant 
does  not  become  a  rocketer  until  it  has  passed  the  first  floating 
stage  of  its  flight.  It  may  be  that  when  going  up  wind  it  will 
not  be  able  to  float  at  all,  but  if  the  wind  is  as  high  as  this 
implies,  there  is,  again,  the  question  whether  the  pheasant  is 
entitled  to  be  called  a  rocketer.  The  term,  however,  has  been 
so  much  abused  by  misapplication  that  it  has  almost  gone  out 
of  use,  and  people  speak  more  frequently  of  high  or  tall  birds 
and  of  fast  ones,  of  curling  and  sailing  pheasants. 

Although  pace  is  in  great  request  by  the  pheasant  shooter, 
he  does  not  generally  appreciate  the  greater  difficulty  of 
shooting  through  foliage  at  his  birds.  There  is  excuse  for  this. 
The  shot  does  not  do  the  trees  any  good,  and  besides  there  is  a 
distinct  tendency  to  shoot  to  a  "  gallery,"  which  in  cover  is 
limited  by  the  surroundings.  It  unquestionably  enhances  the 
pleasure  of  covert  shooting  to  be  able  to  see  what  all  one's 
fellow-guns  do.  There  are  times  when  no  birds  come  except 
in  one  way,  and  this  is  apt  to  be  dull  for  those  not  then 
"engaged,"  unless  they  can  see  the  wings  of  the  battle  line. 
Nevertheless,  speaking  of  our  best  English  sporting  spirit,  if  we 


BRINGING  PHEASANTS  TO  THE  GUNS         297 

can  satisfy  our  own  critical  sense,  we  desire  no  other  apprecia- 
tion. But  we  like  to  appreciate  others  and  to  criticise  mentally 
their  performances,  therefore  we  want  to  see  them.  The 
author,  however,  has  pleased  himself  more  by  success  in  killing 
pheasants  between  tall  trees  that  he  could  not  see  through  than 
by  any  other  kind  of  shooting.  However,  he  would  not  say 
that  this  is  really  the  more  difficult  in  practice,  although  in  theory 
it  looks  to  be  infinitely  the  more  taxing.  The  author  has  missed 
more  easy  game  than  any  others,  he  supposes  by  mere  laziness. 
If  there  is  anything  special  to  be  done,  one  is  never  late  for 
breakfast ;  but  on  a  day  off  one  often  is  late,  and  it  seems  to  be 
the  same  in  shooting.  If  there  is  only  just  time,  then  the 
nerves  are  alive  to  take  the  smallest  chance,  whereas,  given 
ample  time,  the  author  at  any  rate  can  often  take  just  too 
long. 

In  bringing  pheasants  to  the  guns,  it  is  often  necessary 
to  discriminate  between  the  wild  and  tame  bred.  The  former 
are  much  more  upon  the  alert  than  the  latter,  and  it  is  often 
impossible  to  drive  them  out  of  a  cover,  for  the  very  simple 
reason  that  they  cannot  be  got  to  go  into  and  remain  in  it  long 
enough  to  be  driven  out.  Then  pheasant  driving  becomes 
beating  a  country,  very  much  like  grouse  or  partridge  driving. 
Wild  birds  are  also  much  more  apt  to  take  wing  before  they  are 
wanted  to,  and  to  fly  out  at  the  flanks  of  the  beats  over  the 
heads  of  the  stops.  But  provided  the  wild  birds  can  be  kept 
upon  their  legs,  they  will  answer  to  the  control  of  the  wood- 
craftsman  just  as  well  as  tame  bred  pheasants.  Probably  there 
is  no  difference  in  the  speed  at  which  tame  and  wild  pheasants 
travel,  and  one  is  as  easy  to  shoot  as  the  other  when  brought 
to  the  gun,  but  the  wild  bred  bird  is  not  as  easy  to  bring  there 
as  the  other.  If  he  cannot  fly  faster — and  the  author  agrees  with 
the  Marquis  of  Granby  that  he  does  not — he  can  at  least  fly 
farther,  and  probably  he  is  more  likely  in  hill  country,  where  he 
is  mostly  in  evidence,  to  take  an  up-hill  course.  Both  of  these 
characteristics  are  apt  to  carry  him  well  out  of  range  of  guns 
that  are  posted  as  experience  of  hand-bred  pheasants  suggests 
to  be  best. 


298  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

Pheasants  will  rarely  fly  away  to  ground  they  do  not  know, 
but  they  can  be  made  to  run  there.  The  principle  of  driving 
them  is  to  leave  one  end  open  and  close  three  sides  by  means 
of  beaters  or  stops.  But  the  birds  have  a  natural  tendency 
to  cling  to  cover  as  they  run,  not  necessarily  woods,  but  any 
cover  that  can  hide  them ;  turnips  and  gorse,  broom  and 
ferns,  they  particularly  like  to  run  in.  But  in  driving  pheasants 
along  narrow  strips  of  covert  side  stops  have  to  be  well  back 
from  the  plantation,  otherwise  by  becoming  aware  of  stops  far 
ahead  the  birds  may  believe  themselves  to  be  pounded,  and  then 
they  will  fly  at  once,  and  usually  towards  their  homes — that  is, 
in  the  opposite  direction  to  that  in  which  they  are  wanted  to  go. 
At  Holkham,  for  the  reason  stated,  a  good  deal  of  this  shooting 
of  "  pheasants  back  "  is  prohibited  ;  but  in  many  places  it  is  the 
most  appreciated  of  all,  for  those  that  fly  back  over  the  heads  of 
the  advancing  line  in  covert  are  sure  to  be  high  lOO  yards  behind 
the  rise,  whereas  in  the  line  they  may  give  rather  tame  shooting. 

The  latest  generation  of  pheasant  shooters  looks  back  at  the 
sport  of  a  hundred  years  ago  with  indifference  and  contempt — 
indifference  because  the  birds  were  so  few,  and  contempt 
because  it  believes  the  shooting  was  very  easy.  Some  of  it  was 
very  easy,  no  doubt ;  but  in  those  days  there  were  no  rides 
through  the  woods,  and  some  of  them  were  so  thick  that  leather 
jackets  had  to  be  worn  by  sportsmen,  who  would  force  through 
after  spaniels,  or  try  to,  and  often  find  that  even  then  they  could 
not  do  it.  The  gamekeeper's  change  of  dress  from  velveteen  to 
Harris  or  home-spun  cloth  indicates  the  change  that  has  taken 
place  in  the  coverts.  Forestry  has  more  or  less  come  in,  and 
with  the  more  thickly  planted  trees,  blackthorn  and  bramble, 
white  thorn  and  gorse,  have  been  stifled  by  want  of  sun  and  air. 
The  pheasant  now  runs  in  the  open  covert,  whereas  he  would 
lie  close  in  the  bramble  and  gorse  bushes,  which  often  grew 
8  or  9  feet  high.  Pheasant  shooting  in  the  "  hind  legs "  was 
not  child's  play ;  it  was  dreadfully  hard  work,  and  the  snap 
shots  given  were  often  most  difficult,  but  the  difficulty  was  not 
of  the  same  kind  as  that  of  the  fast,  high  bird  in  the  open, 
which    is    mostly   one    to    overcome    by    cool    judgment    and 


BRINGING  PHEASANTS  TO  THE  GUNS  299 

calculating  trick,  but  it  was  one  requiring  physical  strength 
and  snap  shooting. 

Often  it  has  been  said  that  our  ancestors  knew  nothing  of 
the  rocketer.  But  the  hardest  pheasants  the  author  has  ever 
had  to  kill  have  been  Welsh  pheasants  flushed  by  a  team  of 
wild  spaniels,  and  these  birds  often  came  a  couple  of  hundred 
yards  before  they  got  within  range,  and  all  down  hill.  That  is 
to  say,  there  still  exists  shooting  done  in  the  same  way  in  which 
it  was  managed  before  the  battle  of  Waterloo,  and  that  shooting 
is  infinitely  more  difficult  than  any  that  can  be  obtained  in  a 
flat  country. 

The  author  has  arrived  at  a  time  of  life  when  he  has  no 
particular  ambition  to  enter  into  competition  with  his  dead 
ancestors,  but  he  believes  that  their  skill  in  shooting  the  few 
birds  they  had  was  quite  as  great  as  that  of  their  descendants. 
They  were  flight  shooters,  and  if  they  could  hit  flighting  ducks 
and  teal  in  the  dusk  of  evening,  they  could  do  anything  with 
the  shot  gun,  except  that  they  knew  nothing  of  getting  ofl"  their 
guns  at  the  rate  of  200  shots  in  20  minutes. 

This  is  quite  a  demoralising  rate  of  shooting  at  first,  but  it 
is  attainable  by  everyone,  now  that  every  gun-maker  has  a  high 
tower  and  clay  birds  to  put  over  the  shooter  in  streams. 

Fashion  in  shooting  always  seems  to  go  by  contraries.  That 
which  is  most  difficult  becomes  most  fashionable,  and  now  that 
anyone  may  learn  how  to  hit  driven  game  and  "  let  off"  quickly, 
by  means  of  the  shooting  schools,  it  is  doubtful  whether  fashion 
will  not  turn  round  and  favour  that  which  is  less  attainable,  and 
not  to  be  acquired  by  school  teaching.  This  sort  of  shooting 
education  cannot  help  a  man  to  shoot  straight  at  the  end  of  a 
long  day  in  hot  sun  and  over  the  roughest  peat  hags.  Only 
practice  in  the  thing  itself  will  do  that :  there  is  no  royal  road 
to  high  form,  as  there  is  for  the  butts. 

In  big  shoots  the  tendency  is  to  have  two  parties  of  beaters, 
to  avoid  a  loss  of  time.  One  party  gets  into  position  while  the 
other  is  beating,  so  that  often  guns  have  only  to  face  about  after 
shooting  the  game  of  one  covert  in  order  to  receive  pheasants 
driven  into  the  beaten  covert  from  another  one. 


300  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

A  semicircle  of  beaters  is  advocated  sometimes,  but  the 
wings  are  feeble  protection  against  pheasants  breaking  away, 
and  it  is  much  better  to  employ  stops,  when  there  will  not  be 
the  same  necessity  for  the  crescent  formation. 

Beaters  should  be  supplied  with  smocks.  It  is  not  fair  to 
them  to  send  them  through  thick  covert  without  some  pro- 
tection to  their  clothes,  more  especially  if  the  covert  is  wet. 

Pheasant  coverts  are  not  now  often  full  of  ground  game,  and 
the  beating  for  both  together  is  not  as  fashionable  as  formerly 
was  the  case.  There  are  usually  difficulties ;  for  instance,  the 
rabbits  cannot  be  got  to  leave  coverts,  and  the  pheasants  are  not 
much  shot  inside  them.  But  where  the  guns  are  used  to  drive 
the  pheasants  to  favoured  rising  places,  and  no  attempt  is  made 
to  shoot  the  birds  before  they  get  there,  rabbits  and  hares  can 
very  well  be  shot  in  these  beating  operations.  The  only  difficulty 
in  this  is  the  delay  that  occurs  in  looking  for  the  dead  and 
wounded,  and  really  there  should  be  no  difficulty  about  that, 
if  all  shooters  made  it  a  point  of  sportsmanship  to  have  a  good 
and  reliable  retriever.  But  if  canine  steadiness  is  always  useful, 
it  is  essential  on  these  occasions.  Pheasants  are  running  in 
front,  perhaps  in  hundreds,  and  a  retriever  sent  for  a  wounded 
rabbit  must  be  perfectly  safe  not  to  get  on  the  foot  scent  of  one 
of  the  pheasants  and  rode  it  up,  until  overtaking  it  he  flushes 
hundreds  and  spoils  the  day.  There  are  some  retrievers  that  it 
would  be  quite  safe  to  send  for  a  rabbit,  because  it  never  goes 
far,  and  also  for  a  hare,  or  pheasant,  back,  but  for  neither  of  these 
forward,  because  there  is  no  knowing  that  they  will  not  run  into 
the  bulk  of  the  pheasants,  and  when  once  put  on  wounded  game 
it  is  the  retriever's  business  to  follow  until  he  gets  it. 

In  very  big  coverts  the  stopping  out  of  rabbits  may  safely 
proceed  before  the  pheasants  are  shot,  if  care  be  taken  that  the 
stopping  is  in  progress  only  in  one  part  of  the  wood  at  any  one 
time. 

Sometimes  it  is  necessary,  in  order  to  make  pheasants  rise 
far  enough  from  the  guns,  to  run  nets  across  a  wood  lOO  yards 
or  200  yards  from  its  end  where  the  guns  are  to  be  posted. 
Some  people  use  a  "  sewin  "  instead.     This  is  a  long  string  with 


BRINGING  PHEASANTS  TO  THE  GUNS         301 

a  bit  of  paper  or  feathers  tied  into  it  at  every  5  yards  or  less. 
The  whole  is  then  lodged  upon  sticks  stuck  into  the  ground.  If 
one  end  is  given  to  a  man,  he  can  by  jerking  the  string  turn 
back  large  numbers  of  pheasants  ;  but  care  is  necessary  to  ensure 
that  the  sticks  are  flexible,  and  that  the  string  is  firmly  fixed  to 
the  tops  of  them.  The  object  is  that  the  feathers  or  paper  may 
dance  when  one  end  of  the  string  is  pulled. 

A  succession  of  small  rises  throughout  the  length  of  a 
covert  can  be  arranged,  by  fixing  at  intervals  short  nets  set  up 
in  the  form  of  a  V,  with  the  opening  towards  the  beaters. 


SHOOTING  WILD  DUCKS  ARTIFICIALLY 

REARED 

DURING  the  last  decade  it  has  been  discovered  that  wild 
ducks  can  be  so  managed  as  to  give  assured  sport. 
Some  people  rate  it  a  good  deal  higher  than  pheasant  shooting, 
and  besides  this  the  wild  duck  is  very  much  more  easily  bred 
than  the  pheasant,  costs  less  than  half,  and  if  it  does  give  as 
good  sport,  or  better,  there  is  nothing  more  to  be  said.  But 
the  artificially  bred  wild  duck  is  very  much  more  difficult  to 
manage  in  shooting  than  the  pheasant.  The  latter  is  a  shy, 
nervous  bird  ;  but  the  duck  considers  things,  and  therein  lies 
the  trouble.  If  you  treat  him  affectionately,  you  cannot  frighten 
him  ;  if  you  keep  him  wild,  you  are  very  likely  to  lose  him 
altogether.  You  may  so  arrange,  if  you  will,  that  the  wild 
duck  is  not  the  least  bit  scared  at  the  firing  of  guns.  Probably 
this  is  the  proper  management,  because,  after  all,  when  this 
has  been  brought  about,  your  duck  only  the  closer  imitates 
the  game  birds  that  we  love  so  well.  You  will  send  every 
pigeon  clattering  out  of  the  trees  if  you  fire  a  gun  in  covert ; 
but  the  pheasants  take  hardly  any  notice,  neither  do  partridges 
or  grouse  care  for  the  sound  of  a  gun,  although  they  care  very 
much  for  the  sight  of  a  man,  and  shy  at  the  smoke  but  not 
at  the  sound  made  by  a  line  of  guns.  The  wild  duck,  unless 
taught  better  manners,  is  as  scared  as  the  pigeon  by  the  sound 
of  firing.  Hence  it  is  difficult  to  drive  birds  backwards  and 
forwards  over  a  line  of  guns,  because  even  if  they  will  take 
that  flight  twice,  they  will  mount  up  five  or  ten  times  as  high 
as  a  gun  can  reach.  The  more  shooting  there  is  the  higher 
they  mount,  and  even  if  they  want  to  come  down  to  a  favourite 

302 


SHOOTING  WILD  DUCKS  ARTIFICIALLY  REARED    303 

pool  they  swing  round  and  far  above  many  times  before  they 
venture  to  come  near  enough  to  the  surface  to  afford  a  shot. 
This  is  the  nature  of  the  really  wild  bird,  which  is  nevertheless 
partial  to  one  home  water,  and  is  practically  at  home  nowhere 
else.  Consequently,  when  duck  are  artificially  reared,  this 
wild  and  pigeon-like  habit  must  be  eliminated  in  some  way, 
otherwise  a  thousand  duck  may  show  themselves  only  too 
well,  and  give  no  sport  whatever.  The  broad  principle  of 
getting  shooting  at  hand-reared  ducks  is,  therefore,  either  to 
prevent  guns  from  scaring  them,  or  else  to  arrange  that  instead 
of  seeing  the  shooters  constantly  they  only  see  them  once, 
and  that  once  when  the  birds  are  going  home.  The  first  plan 
is  very  easily  arranged  by  constantly  letting  the  ducks  hear  a 
shot  or  two  about  feeding-time.  It  can  even  be  brought  about 
that  the  gun  is  the  signal  for  food,  and  when  that  has  been 
accomplished  the  danger  is  not  that  the  birds  will  be  scared 
away  to  sea  or  into  the  sky,  but  that  they  should  settle  near 
the  shooters  and  quack  for  food.  But  without  making  the 
gun  the  actual  signal  for  feeding-time,  it  is  easy  enough  to  let 
the  young  birds  hear  enough  of  it  to  disregard  it  entirely.  If 
this  is  not  done,  the  birds  will  not  settle  during  shooting  in  the 
neighbourhood,  and  if  they  will  not  alight  they  cannot  be 
driven.  Another  difficulty  is  that  these  birds  love  to  associate 
in  great  numbers,  and  in  a  big  flock  what  one  does  they  all 
do.  It  is  clearly  too  mad  for  a  moment  and  dull  for  an  hour 
when  all  the  duck  come  over  at  once,  and  so  end  a  morning's 
shooting. 

Two  plans  have  been  adopted  for  getting  over  the  difficulty, 
both  of  which  are  based  on  calling  the  birds  to  feed  away  from 
home,  and  driving  them  back  over  the  shooters  in  small 
batches. 

This  is  open  to  sentimental  objections,  of  course,  but  there 
are  two  ways  of  doing  even  this :  one  of  them  seems  to  bear 
lesser  sentimental  objection  than  the  other.  The  most  effective 
plan  is  that  one  which  it  is  said  was  adopted  at  Netherby 
when  and  before  the  Prince  of  Wales  shot  there.  The  state- 
ment has  often  been  made,  and  has  never  been  contradicted 


304  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

in  public,  so  probably  it  is  true,  that  when  the  birds  are  called 
to  feed  away  from  their  home  waters  by  the  sound  of  a  horn, 
they  are  penned  up,  and  then  let  out  a  few  at  a  time  to  fly 
home  over  the  heads  of  the  guns.  The  Prince  has  expressed 
the  intention  of  never  shooting  at  trapped  creatures,  and 
probably  he  is  unaware  how  the  Netherby  duck  were  managed, 
because  if  it  is  done  in  the  way  described  above  there  is  a 
sort  of  penning,  but  so  managed  as  to  give  the  duck  all  the 
world  before  them  if  they  elect  to  take  chances  before  they 
come  to  the  guns.  There  is  absolutely  nothing  to  show  that 
the  duck  have  been  detained  longer  than  just  enough  to  divide 
them  into  small  batches,  but  what  the  Prince  of  Wales  has 
said  does  nevertheless  express  the  sentiment  of  sportsmen 
generally.  The  best  deer  shooting  in  the  world  is  of  no 
sporting  account  if  it  is  in  a  park  and  not  on  open  ground, 
and  consequently  there  is  a  sentiment  which  counts  for  a  good 
deal  in  the  manner  of  driving  duck  to  the  gun. 

The  other  plan  to  effect  the  same  results  without  awakening 
any  question  of  the  ethics  of  sport,  is  to  be  found  in  feeding 
the  duck,  not  in  pens,  but  in  a  wide  expanse  of  covert,  and 
teaching  them  to  hunt  all  over  it  for  their  broadcast  scattered 
grain.  If  this  plan  is  adopted,  it  is  fairly  easy  with  clever 
management  to  send  the  duck  home  in  small  batches,  provided 
the  feeding  -  ground  is  widely  enough  scattered,  so  that  one 
party  of  ducks  cannot  see  another  when  it  is  flushed  or  when 
in  the  air  making  for  home.  Duck  imitate  each  other  to  such 
an  extent  that  if  they  did  see  one  lot  disturbed  and  made  to 
fly  home,  probably  a  great  many  would  rise  at  once  and  do 
the  same.  Obviously  the  better  way  to  avoid  this  is  to  start 
the  duck  out  of  covert  at  the  end  nearest  home  first — "  home  " 
being  here,  as  above,  used  in  the  sense  of  the  duck's  resting- 
place,  which  is  generally,  but  not  invariably,  water.  At 
Netherby  it  is  said  that  ducks  are  made  to  consider  the  coverts 
their  homes  in  some  cases.  It  cannot  be  laid  down  to  apply 
generally  that  any  one  system  is  the  best,  because  all  depends 
upon  the  kind  of  place  the  birds  are  to  be  reared  in.  However, 
this  may  be   taken  to   apply  everywhere — that  it  is  easier  to 


SHOOTING  WILD  DUCKS  ARTIFICIALLY  REARED    305 

rise  duck  in  small  batches  out  of  covert  and  from  several  miles 
of  streams,  than  from  sheets  of  water  where  every  bird  can 
see  all  that  happens.  The  driving  from  pool  to  pool  is  oftenest 
resorted  to,  but  in  that  case  the  artificially  reared  birds  are 
more  easily  employed  as  an  additional  sport  to  many  days 
than  for  regular  duck  days. 

At  Netherby  there  have  been  10,000  hand-reared  duck  in 
a  season,  and  difficulty  only  arises  when  it  is  sought  to  kill 
a  good  proportion  of  these  in  one  day.  Here  there  are  three 
or  four  different  rearing  places  or  "  homes."  Most  of  the  eggs 
have  in  the  past  been  purchased,  and  placed  under  domestic 
hens  in  the  manner  of  pheasants'  eggs.  At  Tring  Park  the 
eggs  are  procured  by  penning  off  a  portion  of  marsh  and 
water  of  about  4  acres,  and  the  birds  are  caught  up,  wing 
clipped,  and  turned  out  in  this,  in  the  proportion  of  three 
duck  to  a  mallard.  At  Tring  the  young  duck  are  started 
with  some  hard-boiled  egg,  bread-crumbs,  and  boiled  rice, 
but  at  Netherby  this  is  done  with  duck  meal ;  later,  they  are 
fed  on  maize  porridge  mixed  dryish,  and  later  with  maize 
whole  and  dry.  At  Netherby  they  are  given  a  little  pan  of 
water  to  each  coop  from  the  first.  This  has  to  serve  until 
they  are  three  weeks  old,  when  puddles  30  feet  in  circum- 
ference are  made  for  them  ;  and  although  ten  in  a  coop  is  the 
rule,  and  they  are  shut  in  at  nights  along  with  the  foster- 
mother,  they  crowd  in  hundreds  into  these  clay  constructed 
puddles.  The  food  is  also  given  in  a  small  pan  at  each  coop. 
Any  method  which  drops  sticky  food  on  the  backs  of  the 
ducks  is  sure  to  lead  to  trouble.  At  six  weeks  old  the  birds 
are  taken  to  their  permanent  homes,  which  at  Netherby  are 
mostly  the  brooks  or  burns  flowing  through  the  estate. 

Wet  is  not  bad  for  young  ducks  as  long  as  they  can  get 
under  the  brooding  hen,  but  wet  and  cold  as  well  is  not  their 
best  weather,  and  none  of  the  most  successful  breeders  allow 
the  little  ducks  to  have  their  fling  in  large  sheets  of  water,  or 
even  ponds  or  brooks,  until  they  are  six  weeks  old.  When 
quite  small,  the  greatest  enemies  of  the  duck  are  hot  sun  with- 
out shade,  and  cold  wind.     In  the  early  stages  they  are  best 


3o6  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

fed  four  times  in  the  day,  as  at  Netherby,  where  over  looo  ducks 
have  frequently  been  killed  in  one  day.  There  they  are  penned 
out  exactly  as  pheasants  generally  are,  in  a  field  surrounded 
with  wire  netting  to  keep  out  foxes. 

Obviously  in  no  manner  ever  discovered  can  true  wild  duck 
be  killed  in  such  numbers  as  these.  That  they  have  been 
caught  in  numbers  equally  large  in  decoys,  and  could  be  shot 
by  taking  them  away  from  the  decoys  and  letting  them  out  a 
few  at  a  time  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  guns,  is  certain,  but  it 
never  has  been  done,  and  a  decoy  is  only  used  as  a  neck-breaking 
trap  to  supply  the  markets  with  duck,  widgeon,  and  teal. 

There  is  nothing  whatever  to  be  said  against  the  hand  rear- 
ing of  wild  duck.  If  they  are  properly  managed,  they  give  far 
harder  and  better  shooting  than  pheasants ;  especially  is  this  the 
case  if  they  are  left  long  enough  to  get  their  mature  plumage. 

Some  difference  of  opinion  has  arisen  on  the  best  size  of 
shot  to  use  for  wild  duck.  Probably  No.  4  is  the  best  size,  if  the 
particular  gun  will  shoot  it  well.  The  size  to  be  most  objected 
to  is  No.  6,  which  has  not  penetration  enough  for  the  body  shots 
at  any  moderate  range,  and  is  not  thick  enough  to  make  sure  of 
hitting  head  or  neck.  If  the  latter  is  to  be  relied  upon.  No.  7 
is  better  than  No.  6,  but  not  better  than  No.  8.  But  if  this 
principle  is  adopted,  only  shots  should  be  taken  when  the  head 
and  neck  is  well  in  view,  for  from  behind  these  sizes  can  only 
wound.  They  wound  a  good  deal  in  any  case,  but  when  duck 
are  coming  anything  like  straight  for  the  gun  (which  seldom 
happens)  body  striking  small  pellets  glance  off  like  hail.  No.  4 
shot  may  not  hit  often  enough  to  please  shooters ;  but  duck 
cannot  take  this  size  away  apparently  unharmed  to  die  by 
slow  torture.  For  that  reason  it  is  the  sportsman's  size.  The 
neck  and  head  shot  please  the  shooter,  because  they  alone  inflict 
sudden  death  in  the  air,  and  the  work  looks  to  be  a  clean  hit 
and  a  clean  miss  ;  but  when  this  appearance  is  obtained  by  the 
use  of  small  shot  things  are  not  what  they  seem.  Nothing  can 
be  said  when  the  game  comes  down,  but  every  bird  missed 
must  be  suspected  of  being  "  tailored." 

All  game  birds  cling  to  the  ground  or  the  tree  tops  when 


SHOOTING  WILD  DUCKS  ARTIFICIALLY  REARED    307 

they  are  flying,  more  or  less,  as  the  wind  suits  them.  The  real 
wild  duck  cling  to  the  water,  and  follow  down  the  course  of 
a  stream  in  such  a  way  that  two  or  three  guns  can  be  so  posted 
as  to  command  the  whole  lateral  extension  of  flighting  duck 
or  teal,  except  that  both  these  birds  are  easily  scared  by 
shooting  to  mount  far  out  of  gun  -  shot.  When  they  are 
mounted  they  do  not  necessarily  follow  the  stream,  for  the 
reason  that  they  can  probably  see  other  water  far  ahead,  and 
they  make  for  it  in  a  direct  line.  But  as  the  shots  will  mount 
them,  so  also  a  succession  of  men  posted  in  their  line  of  flight 
will  each  send  them  a  little  higher,  and  consequently  the  shooter 
should  not  only  be  invisible  to  the  duck  before  he  has  fired,  but 
after  also ;  otherwise  he  will  spoil  sport  for  the  next  gun  down 
stream,  or  up,  as  the  case  may  be. 


WILD  WILD-DUCK 

PERHAPS  it  is  a  misnomer  to  speak  of  any  duck  as  "  tame," 
it  gives  a  false  impression ;  but  by  wild  wild-duck  is 
meant  to  be  implied  those  fowl  that  breed  in  a  natural  way, 
and  are  only  to  be  killed  with  much  success  by  artifice.  For 
instance,  there  are  three  great  varieties  of  wild-duck  shooting 
besides  the  punt  gunner's  business.  The  most  practical  of  these 
is  "  flighting  " ;  the  next  often  "  indulged  "  in,  if  it  can  be  called 
indulgence,  is  "  shore  shooting  " ;  and  the  third  kind  is  the  "  gaze  " 
system  that  is  practised  mostly  upon  the  Hampshire  Avon  and 
Stour.  There  are  many  modifications  of  this  system  employed 
upon  other  rivers  and  on  chains  of  pools. 

Flight  Shooting 

Taking  these  in  the  order  named,  it  may  at  once  be  stated 
that  flight  shooting  gives  beautiful  sport,  but  has  the  dis- 
advantage that  it  is  selfish  amusement,  because  one  cannot 
invite  friends  to  assist  in  a  form  of  sport  that  not  only  depends 
much  on  the  weather,  as  all  sports  do,  but  altogether  upon  it. 
"Flighting"  is  the  interception  of  the  wild  duck  in  the  evening 
when  they  come  from  the  sea  or  other  resting-places  to  their 
inland  feed.  Consequently,  the  line  of  flight  must  be  known, 
and  besides,  this  knowledge  is  not  quite  enough,  because  a 
change  of  wind  alters  the  course  of  the  fowl,  which  may  be  said 
to  have  a  different  line  of  flight  for  every  wind.  But  even  when 
the  fowler  has  hit  off  the  correct  land  spot  where  the  fowl  go 
over,  that  is  not  all.  The  weather  counts  for  much  more  than 
this ;  for  it  usually  happens  that  upon  a  still  night  the  duck  go 

308 


WILD  WILD-DUCK  309 

over  at  so  great  a  height  that  shooting  is  out  of  the  question. 
Then  upon  a  starh'ght  night  they  are  so  difficult  to  see  that 
hitting  is  out  of  the  question,  and  it  is  only  on  cloudy,  windy, 
moonlit  nights  that  much  good  can  usually  be  done,  and  only 
then  is  much  execution  likely  if  a  good  head  wind  is  blowing 
against  the  fowl.  At  most,  flight  shooting  only  lasts  from  a 
quarter  to  half  an  hour  in  the  evening.  In  the  morning,  when 
the  fowl  have  fed  and  betake  themselves  seawards,  it  may  last 
a  good  deal  longer,  especially  if,  after  those  have  gone  which 
are  not  inclined  to  rest  in  their  feeding-grounds  (and  there  are 
generally  a  good  many  of  these),  those  grounds  are  disturbed 
purposely.  Flighting  is  a  sport  that  has  one  very  great  advan- 
tage :  if  positions  are  well  chosen  —  not  too  near  either  the 
day  home  or  the  night  feeding  ground — no  harm  whatever  is 
done  by  shooting  every  day.  The  fowl  cannot  be  driven  away 
by  that  means.  One  hears  the  present  generation  of  shooters 
disparaging  the  easy  shots  their  great-grandfathers  gloried  in, 
but  flight  shooting  is  as  old  as  the  "  scatter  gun,"  and  it  is  still 
the  most  difficult  of  all  shooting.  The  author's  experience  of 
shooting  in  the  half  light  is  that  it  is  next  to  impossible  to  hold 
sufficiently  forward.  But  this  is  an  observation  that  he  has 
never  been  able  to  explain  satisfactorily  to  himself  It  is  not 
suggested  that  half  light  travels  slower  than  good  light,  but 
merely  that  the  true  position  of  the  moving  mark  is  not  recog- 
nised by  the  brain  as  quickly  as  anything  in  a  good  light. 

Shore  Shooting 

This  sport  is  much  more  affected  by  the  weather  even  than 
flight  shooting.  Speaking  broadly,  the  shore  is  a  good  place 
for  a  youngster  to  learn  the  art  of  shooting  in  the  early  season, 
say  in  September.  Then  the  curlews  and  the  golden  and  green 
plover  will  be  young,  and  the  most  blundering  performer  will 
hardly  be  able  to  avoid  getting  near  enough  for  a  shot  some- 
times, and  will  not  be  able  to  prevent  an  occasional  foolish 
young  thing  flying  into  the  load.  A  good  many  shots  will  be 
fired  at  creatures  going  low  down    enough  over  water  for  the 


310  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

splash  of  the  pellets  to  be  a  guide  to  the  gunner  for  his  next 
shot.  But  too  much  reliance  must  not  be  placed  on  any  such 
appearances  when  the  bird  is  more  than  a  foot  above  the  water, 
because  after  the  pellets  have  passed  the  game  they  will  be 
going  so  slowly  as  to  appear  far  behind  when  they  splash  the 
water,  even  when,  in  fact,  they  might  have  been  straight  for  the 
mark,  or  even  in  front.  With  shooting  schools  in  such  numbers, 
it  is  much  more  humane  to  rely  for  education  upon  the  class  of 
shooting  given  at  them  than  to  mangle  birds  that  are  of  no 
use  when  killed.  This  remark  does  not,  of  course,  apply  to 
golden  plover,  which  are  quite  as  good  food  as  a  snipe,  nor  to 
green  plover  and  curlew,  which  it  is  said  are  good  food,  but 
only  to  the  terns  and  small  fry  that  are  not  eaten. 

However,  clay  bird  shooting  can  never  teach  confidence  and 
knowledge  of  what  is  and  what  is  not  at  shooting  distance. 
For  this  reason  the  saltings  and  the  shore  experience  of  a  young 
gunner  are  valuable  to  him,  although  the  real  wild  fowlers  of  the 
district  have  every  right  to  believe  themselves  injured  by  people 
who  constantly  disturb  fowl  by  shooting  at  "  rubbish." 

The  young  shooter,  then,  should  not  begin  by  trying  to  see 
how  far  a  gun  will  kill,  for  it  is  no  credit  at  all  to  kill  far  off.  It 
is  the  easiest  kind  of  shot,  because  the  "  game "  is  moving 
relatively  to  the  swing  of  the  gun  far  slower  far  off  than  near 
by.  It  may  credit  the  gun-maker  to  kill  a  long  shot,  but  not 
the  shooter  when  he  misses  the  next  near  one.  Consequently, 
if  one  must  go  shore  shooting  in  summer,  or  before  summer 
visitors  have  gone,  a  good  way  is  to  make  a  rule  never  to  excuse 
a  miss  as  being  too  far.  It  is  wonderful  how,  by  beginning  at 
near  easy  shots  and  never  missing,  the  ability  gradually  comes 
to  make  a  gun  do  its  best  at  farther  distance ;  whereas  begin- 
ning at  long  shots  teaches  nothing,  and  every  miss  begets  loss 
of  confidence,  which  is  the  one  thing  most  essential  in  shooting. 

But  from  the  summer  shore  shooter  to  the  veteran  winter 
business  man  of  the  shore,  who  makes  a  living  by  his  gun,  or 
at  least  makes  his  day's  wages  every  day  he  thinks  it  worth  his 
time  to  go  fowling,  there  is  as  much  difference  as  between 
"  W.  G."  in  his  prime  and  the  stoniest  stone-waller  who  ever 


WILD  WILD-DUCK  311 

blocked  cricket  balls  upon  an  artificial  wicket.  Your  real  clever 
wildfowler  of  the  shore  is  not  born,  he  is  made  by  a  lifetime  of 
experience.  He  and  a  new-comer  may  start  out  in  opposite 
directions,  and  the  local  may  in  a  night  and  a  day  kill  far  more 
widgeon  and  duck  than  he  can  carry  home  at  two  goes  (most 
likely  he  will  take  them  in  a  boat),  and  your  new-comer  without 
assistance  may  never  have  been  within  shot  of  fowl  all  the  time, 
and  probably  will  only  escape  the  rising  tide  by  the  help  of 
Providence. 

A  would-be  shore  shooter,  then,  can  only  succeed  by  placing 
himself  in  the  hands  of  the  best  local  fowler  he  can  get  to  take 
on  the  job.  This  remark  is  equally  true  with  regard  to  the  old 
sportsman  from  elsewhere  as  it  is  of  the  novice  down  for  a 
holiday.  It  is  not  here  only  a  question  of  the  weather,  but 
largely  also  one  of  geography.  Every  creek  through  the  mud 
flats  has  to  be  mapped  out  in  the  mind  of  him  who  would  make 
use  of  creeks  in  order  to  stalk  wild  fowl.  Every  bank  at  low 
tide  must  be  an  hour-glass,  to  indicate  just  when  it  will  dis- 
appear and  the  feeding  fowl  will  be  washed  off  their  legs  and 
will  have  to  find  other  feeding-ground.  Those  fowl  know 
already  where  they  are  going  for  food  the  instant  they  are 
flooded  out,  and  your  real  fowler  knows  it  too,  and  maybe  is 
lying  up  in  a  mud  hole  to  intercept  them.  A  mud  hole  does 
not  sound  like  a  bed  of  roses,  but,  by  one  who  understands  it, 
can  be  made  quite  comfortable  for  a  winter  night's  sport  with 
the  mercury  registering  1 5  degrees  of  frost.  Indeed,  it  is  not 
much  good  at  any  other  time.  It  is  only  in  the  very  wildest 
and  worst  of  nights  and  days  that  wild  fowling  is  at  its  best. 
There  must  be  snow  for  choice,  and  frost  also,  even  on  the  sea- 
shore. In  fact,  the  weather  must  be  so  hard  that  the  fowl  can 
only  feed  on  mud  flats  that  are  tide-washed,  for  the  reason  that 
everywhere  else  the  ground  is  too  hard,  and  too  much  covered 
with  snow  and  ice,  to  enable  ducks  to  reach  the  mud  bottoms 
of  fresh  water,  or  to  enable  widgeon  and  teal  and  geese  to  feed 
elsewhere  at  all.  About  once  in  ten  years  we  have  six  or  eight 
weeks  of  such  weather,  and  then  the  favoured  spots  swarm  with 
fowl  of  all  kinds  to  such  an  extent  that  for  miles  and  miles 


312  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

along  the  coasts  birds  on  the  mud  and  in  the  air  appear  almost 
as  numerous,  and  as  all-pervading,  as  the  great  fat  snowflakes 
that  have  little  less  of  wills  of  their  own  than  the  fowl  themselves, 
and  are  little  less  playthings  and  creations  of  the  air  and 
water. 

In  such  wild  weather  three  shots  at  knotts  have  resulted  in 
a  bag  of  600  birds,  to  say  nothing  of  the  wounded.  Then  grey 
geese  and  brent  fly  low,  and  follow  the  receding,  as  they  have 
to  move  from  the  flowing,  tide ;  for  they  are  always  hungry,  and 
it  is  no  time  to  be  particular.  Ducks  then  feed  as  much  by 
day  as  by  night,  and  geese  possibly  as  much  by  night  as  by 
day  ;  for  they  are  starving,  and  grow  so  poor  in  condition  when 
this  weather  lasts  long  as  not  to  be  worth  shooting,  or  sending 
to  market  when  shot.  It  is  as  if  the  lion  once  more  lay  down 
with  the  lamb,  for  the  birds  become  almost  fearless,  and  quite 
careless  of  their  mortal  enemy  man,  who  in  the  beginning  of 
the  storm  rejoices  in  his  victory  over  the  most  wary  fowl  of  the 
air,  as  the  grey  geese  are,  and  in  the  end  hopes  the  weather 
may  soon  break  to  save  the  lives  of  the  poor  useless  things. 

How  is  it  that  the  fowl  that  are  migrants,  and  have  already 
come  perhaps  2000  miles,  are  caught  like  this,  maybe  upon  the 
north  Norfolk  coast,  when  by  flying  away  to  the  west  coast  of 
Ireland  or  to  sunny  Spain  they  would  find  the  condition  of 
temperature  they  require  and  lots  of  food?  Probably  those 
that  were  there  when  the  weather  started  its  avian  trials  did 
that,  and  possibly  the  multiplication  of  migrants,  as  the  storm 
continues,  are  birds  that  have  already  had  a  thousand  miles'  race 
to  ride  before  the  storm  and  have  been  worsted  in  the  attempt. 
If  so,  their  weakness  and  want  of  food  is  the  cause.  They  have 
not  the  strength  to  cross  snow-covered  England,  where  they 
could  get  no  bite  nor  sup  on  the  way.  In  other  words,  they 
perish,  like  Mrs.  Dombey,  because  they  have  not  the  strength 
to  make  an  effort. 

It  is  not  these  belated  and  consequently  starved  birds  that 
the  shore  shooter  wants  to  make  the  acquaintance  of,  but  the 
first  to  arrive  on  the  wings  of  the  storm,  and  consequently  any 
aspirant  to  this  kind  of  sport  should  keep  in  touch  with  the 


WILD  WILD-DUCK  313 

best  local  fowler  whose  services  he  can  buy.  The  latter  must 
telegraph  the  instant  that  the  weather  and  the  fowl  together 
forecast  the  coming  storm,  and  the  birds  know  before  ther- 
mometer and  barometer  together  can  indicate  what  is  to  be. 
Then  the  gunner  must  take  the  first  train  and  telegraph  to  his 
fowler  to  make  all  arrangements,  otherwise  there  may  be  a 
day's  loss  of  time  when  he  does  arrive,  because  his  fowler  will 
be  where  the  thickest  of  the  fowl  are,  and  there  will  be  nobody 
left  behind  who  knows  exactly  where  that  is  at  any  precise 
period  of  the  day  or  night.  All  who  do  know  will  be  engaged 
in  the  slaughter  for  themselves,  for  on  the  free  saltings  and  the 
shore  all  men  are  equal  who  are  good  fowlers,  and  the  others 
do  not  count. 

When  such  weather  as  this  comes,  history  is  going  to  be 
made,  history  that  will  last  a  hardy  honest  small  community  a 
decade  or  more  to  discuss,  and  for  the  robust  it  is  well  worth 
joining  in,  but  it  is  also  worth  paying  for,  and  a  good  price  too. 
It  is  true  that  by  showing  you  around  a  wildfowler  does  not  lose 
his  own  sport,  or  not  all  of  it ;  but  unless  you  are  a  good  sports- 
man as  well  as  a  good  shot,  your  joint  bags  will  not  equal  that 
of  an  experienced  fowler  by  himself,  and  consequently  luxuries 
at  zero  and  in  a  gale  of  snow  have  to  be  paid  for  on  a  basis  far 
higher  than  ordinary  keeper's  tips.  That  is,  they  have  to  if  you 
want  to  come  in  for  the  cream  of  the  sport. 

The  "Gaze"  System 

The  "gaze"  system  of  shooting  is  a  Hampshire  Avon 
equivalent  for  the  shooting  from  tubs  that  has  been  practised 
for  many  years.  The  shooting  from  the  latter  is  much  more 
suitable  for  large  marshes  and  open  sheets  of  water,  whereas  the 
"  gaze "  is  a  brushwood  or  furze  construction  suitable  for  the 
river  bank.  But  they  are  alike  in  this — that  the  shooting  of 
many  guns  keeps  the  fowl  upon  the  move,  whether  they  ring 
round  pools  and  marshes  or  follow  the  course  of  a  stream.  The 
habit  of  all  fowl  to  prefer  flying  over  water  enables  a  duck 
"  drive  "  (for  these  two  methods  are  duck  drives)  to  be  success- 


314  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

fully  brought  off  without  drivers.  We  have  read  of  Mr.  Abel 
Chapman's  success  by  the  tub  method  in  the  Spanish  marshes, 
and  also  of  a  royal  son  of  King  George  III.  and  his  want  of 
success  in  shooting  fowl  from  a  tub  on  the  Berkeley  Castle 
haunts  of  the  wild  goose.  At  the  latter  other  methods  are 
now  adopted,  but  the  sport  is  not  very  great,  although  this  is 
because  of  the  difficulty  of  getting  shots,  and  not  because  of  any 
scarcity  of  fowl.  Mr.  Chapman  had  splendid  sport  in  Spain,  but 
the  fowl  there  were  greatly  in  excess  of  their  numbers  in 
England,  and  besides,  they  appear  to  have  flown  conveniently 
low.  Much  shooting  by  many  guns  generally  makes  the  fowl 
mount  very  high,  unless  the  shooters  are  very  widely  distributed, 
and  really  the  great  objection  to  wild  wild-duck  is  that  they 
take  a  mean  advantage  of  the  gun-maker,  and  often  fly  at  heights 
no  shot  gun  will  reach  them.  But  very  much  depends  on  the 
frequency  with  which  they  are  disturbed,  and  unquestionably 
they  have  very  pretty  days  of  sport  on  the  Hampshire  rivers 
by  means  of  these  "  gazes."  Where  there  are  very  many  birds 
some  will  be  certain  to  fly  low  enough  to  shoot,  and  they  do  not 
usually  mount,  in  flying  down  a  river,  as  they  do  in  circling 
round  a  pool,  to  see  whether  a  descent  is  safe.  Probably  this  is 
because  they  believe  themselves  to  be  leaving  danger  behind 
when  following  the  course  of  a  river. 

In  making  these  "  gazes  "  it  is  necessary  that  there  should  be 
protection  from  the  sight  of  the  fowl  coming  from  both  up  and 
down  the  river,  and  also  that  the  shelters  should  be  so  arranged 
as  to  enable  shooters  to  get  into  them  without  flushing  fowl 
close  by.  The  way  the  shooting  is  arranged  is  for  the  manager 
to  point  out  each  man's  "gaze,"  or  hide, or  butt,  to  him,  and  give 
him  just  long  enough  to  get  there  a  minute  or  two  before  shoot- 
ing is  to  begin.  Each  gunner  is  requested  not  to  fire  until  a 
certain  time  by  the  watch,  which  is  fixed  upon  so  as  to  allow 
the  man  with  farthest  to  go  to  comfortably  reach  his  "gaze" 
before  time  is  up.  Mr.  Robert  Hargreaves,  who  has  done  a 
good  deal  of  this  kind  of  shooting  as  well  as  most  others,  is  of 
opinion  that  teal  for  the  second  barrel  give  the  most  difficult 
of  all  shooting.     He  describes  the  action  of  a  company  of  teal 


WILD  WILD-DUCK  315 

as  like  the  bursting  of  a  bomb  when  they  are  shot  at  by  the  first 
barrel,  so  that  for  the  next  shot  the  game  may  be  anywhere 
and  going  in  any  direction.  This  seems  very  admirable  descrip- 
tion, but  it  is  only  thanks  to  those  "  gazes  "  that  the  first  shot  is 
not  just  as  difficult  as  the  second.  The  teal  seems  to  be  the 
only  bird  that  can  set  the  laws  of  gravity  wholly  at  defiance,  and 
at  the  glint  of  a  moving  gun  can  shoot  straight  upwards, 
apparently  at  the  same  speed  it  was  travelling  forward  before 
being  frightened.  Often  the  bird  is  by  this  means  out  of  range  by 
sheer  altitude  before  the  shooter  has  recovered  from  the  intended 
allowance  ahead  that  he  expected  to  have  to  give,  and  began  to 
swing  for,  before  the  teal  converted  themselves  into  living 
rockets,  and  thus  disconcerted  the  shooter. 

The  beauty  of  this  kind  of  duck  shooting  is  that  every 
species  of  duck  has  a  different  flight  from  its  successor,  that  the 
shooter  never  knows  what  is  coming,  nor  from  what  direction  it 
will  be.  One  never  does  see  all  the  grouse  that  pass  near 
enough  for  a  shot,  and  then  one  is  only  watching  one  way ;  but 
in  "  gaze  "  shooting  it  is  necessary  to  watch  every  way.  This  is 
essentially  sport  in  which  humanity  in  a  double  sense  is  the 
best  policy.  To  shoot  farther  than  you  can  kill  is  to  wound 
duck  that  will  possibly  die  out  at  sea,  and  it  is  also  to  send  all 
the  duck  within  hearing  up  one  storey  higher,  and  to  spoil  the 
sport  of  your  fellows  as  a  consequence. 

The  best  sizes  of  shot  for  duck  are  probably  No.  7  or  8  if 
reliance  is  to  be  placed  upon  hitting  head  or  neck,  or  No.  4  if  it 
is  desired  that  body  shots  should  kill.  Probably  No.  6  is  the 
very  worst  size  to  use,  because  it  has  power  enough  to  get 
through  the  breast  feathers  but  not  through  the  breast 
bone  of  a  duck  at  a  moderate  range.  No.  8  does  not  appear 
to  the  writer  to  do  much  damage  to  a  coming  duck  unless 
it  catches  him  in  the  head  and  neck,  and  then  it  is  fatal, 
and  that  is  all  that  can  be  said  of  No.  6,  which  has  so  much 
less  chance  of  hitting  the  vitals.  There  is  a  very  well  developed 
horror  of  plastering,  and  that  is  the  reason  why  No.  4  is  very 
popular  for  wild  duck.  A  choke  bore  and  No.  4  shot  are  a  good 
combination  for  this  sport. 


3i6  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

Flapper  Shooting 

Flapper  shooting  is  killing  wild  duck  before  they  have  got 
their  full  powers  of  flight.  Its  sport  consists  in  getting  shots. 
Very  good  spaniels  are  wanted  to  make  the  flappers  rise  at  all. 
They  are  very  easy  to  kill,  and  even  teal  flushed  before  the 
sportsman  are  about  as  easy  as  a  sitting  mark.  Indeed,  to  some 
people  they  are  more  easy,  because  a  sitting  mark  is  very  often 
missed  not  only  by  pigeon  shooters  but  also  by  platers  of  guns. 

Encouraging  the  Fowl 

It  seems  curious  that  wild  fowl  that  spend  most  of  their  time 
in  the  water  particularly  dislike  wind,  but  so  it  is,  and  in  making 
teal  pits  or  improving  them,  or  in  attracting  fowl  to  a  river, 
the  more  artificial  shelter  you  can  afford  the  fowl  the  more  they 
will  be  attracted  to  your  water.  Near  the  coast  this  is  generally 
well  understood,  and  there,  too,  the  roughness  of  the  sea  greatly 
influences  the  birds  to  seek  peace  and  shelter  inland  ;  so  that 
there  are  naturally  good  days  and  bad  ones  for  shooting  from 
the  "gazes."  In  a  smooth  sea  and  fine  weather  duck  seem  to 
prefer  to  go  to  bed,  which  they  do  in  the  daytime,  on  the  sea. 
But  in  rough  weather  the  majority  will  find  out  any  quiet  places 
on  fresh  water  where  the  presence  of  other  duck  prove  to  them 
that  there  is  safety.  For  this  reason  some  half-tame  wild  duck 
are  a  great  attraction  to  the  really  wild  ones,  but  the  former  can 
be  only  kept  at  home  by  good  feeding,  for  wing-clipped  fowl  are 
no  attraction  to  the  really  wild  birds.  Home-bred  birds  appear 
not  so  much  to  attract  as  to  go  and  fetch  the  wild  ones,  and 
this  is  the  reason  that  wing-clipped  birds  will  not  do.  On  the 
"gaze"  system  800  duck  have  been  killed  in  four  days'  shoot- 
ing by  a  party.  Mr.  John  Mills,  of  Bisterne,  using  an  8  and  a 
1 2  bore,  has  killed  1 30  fowl  in  a  day  from  one  "  gaze,"  and  on  one 
occasion  100  cartridges  were  shot  away  from  one  "  gaze  "  in  a  few 
minutes,  and  the  shooter  ran  out  of  cartridges  and  had  to  stop 
and  look  at  the  fowl  for  half  an  hour.  He  killed  60  duck, 
and    thought   he   could    have   doubled    his   bag   with   another 


WILD  WILD-DUCK  317 

100  cartridges.  This  was  at  Lord  Manners'  place,  Avon  Tyrrell. 
In  parts  of  Dorsetshire  as  well  as  Pembrokeshire  a  great  deal 
of  attention  has  been  given  to  the  formation  of  teal  pits  and 
the  cultivation  of  wild  wild-fowl,  but  the  biggest  bags  made 
have  fallen  far  short  of  those  mentioned  above,  possibly  because 
the  fowl  are  generally  taken  in  an  ordinary  day's  shooting  of 
other  game,  and  not  in  specially  arranged  big  days. 


RABBIT  SHOOTING 

FROM  potting  the  unsuspecting  rabbit  sitting  at  his  front 
door,  and  spoiling  two  blades  of  grass  for  every  one  he 
eats,  to  killing  rabbits  hunted  out  of  heather  by  spaniels,  there 
is  nearly  as  wide  a  difference  as  the  whole  range  of  the  shot 
gun  embraces.  The  rabbit  is  said  to  be  the  schoolboy's  game, 
but  the  schoolboy  might  fairly  retort  that  this  is  because  the 
seniors  cannot  hit  him.  He  is  certainly  the  easiest  and  also  the 
hardest  to  kill  of  all  the  British  food  for  powder.  It  just 
depends  upon  how  he  is  treated  whether  he  is  worthy  to  be 
called  a  sporting  beast  or  not.  A  rabbit  in  strange  ground,  or 
one  that  knows  he  cannot  get  home,  is  the  poorest-hearted  little 
beast  possible,  and  is  even  too  much  afraid  to  run  away.  Then 
we  are  often  told  what  splendid  sport  rabbits  make  for  the  gun 
when  hunted  by  beagles.  This  is  a  fraud.  It  sounds  pretty, 
but  in  practice  all  the  rabbits  but  one  will  be  sitting  up  trimming 
their  whiskers  with  their  fore  feet  and  listening  to  the  direction 
of  the  hunt,  for  the  beagles'  pack,  and  so  only  one  rabbit  is 
being  hunted  at  any  one  time.  If  you  are  watching  a  rabbit 
and  hear  the  hunt  turn,  you  will  get  ready  for  the  time  the 
creature  runs.  But  he  will  not  run ;  he  will  merely  hop  quietly 
out  of  the  line  of  the  hunt,  and  sit  up  to  listen  some  more. 

In  bracken  that  is  not  too  thick  the  rabbit  may  bolt,  but 
when  it  is  very  thick  the  author  has  watched  rabbits  defeat  a 
whole  team  of  spaniels  by  the  higher  strategic  operation  of 
sitting  quite  still.  In  this  stuff  you  see  them  at  your  toes, 
much  too  near  to  shoot,  and  cannot  see  them  at  all  when  they 
are  far  enough  away  for  half  a  load  of  shot  not  to  smash  them. 
If  you  want  pretty  rabbit  shooting,  you  must  have  dogs  that 

318 


RABBIT  SHOOTING  319 

do  not  "  open,"  or  else  beaters.  In  fair  undergrowth,  in  which 
one  can  just  see  to  shoot  sometimes,  rabbits  when  at  home  will 
make  for  their  holes  fast  enough,  and  they  take  shooting.  But 
for  difficulty  in  covert  they  are  as  nothing  compared  with  rabbits 
that  have  well  used  runs  through  fairly  long  heather.  Some- 
times in  running  they  will  be  under  the  heather,  and  even  under 
the  level  of  the  ground  in  the  broken  surface ;  sometimes  they 
will  be  above  the  heather.  You  will  probably  try  to  shoot  a 
little  in  front  of  them  as  they  turn  and  twist  along  their  runs  at 
great  speed,  but  nothing  makes  a  shooter  feel  so  foolish  as 
shooting  so  much  in  front  that  the  quarry  never  at  any  time 
gets  as  forward  as  the  shot  went.  The  heather  rabbit  is  quite 
capable  of  creating  this  feeling,  for  when  you  lose  sight  of  him 
he  frequently  changes  his  course  just  as  if  he  knew  that  his 
enemy  was  noted  for  shooting  well  in  front.  Where  under 
covert  is  very  thick  indeed,  the  author  has  never  seen  pretty 
rabbit  shooting,  although  he  has  seen  fearless  spaniels  trying  to 
make  the  rabbits  run,  and  succeeding  in  making  them  crawl  and 
hop  by  turns,  but  run  very  rarely  indeed.  They  seem  to  know 
that  the  spaniels  cannot  catch  them  in  such  places.  Rabbit 
shooting  on  a  grand  scale  is  nearly  always  a  failure.  You  kill 
the  numbers,  no  doubt;  but  in  order  that  you  should  do  it  the 
rodents  have  been  ferreted  or  "  stunk  "  out  of  their  holes,  and 
the  latter  have  been  stopped  up,  and  most  of  the  quarry  appear 
to  know  they  are  in  a  trap,  and  are  philosophical  enough  to  think 
that  it  is  useless  to  run  without  having  a  place  to  run  to.  You 
can  certainly  drive  rabbits  past  the  guns,  but  you  cannot  always 
make  them  run.  In  only  fairly  thick  under  covert,  with  rides 
for  the  guns  to  stand,  fair  sport  is  often  obtained.  You  may  see 
the  rabbits  come  up  to  the  ride  and  then  stop  and  hide.  They 
fear  to  cross.  Then,  when  they  are  obliged  to  go,  they  make  a 
rush  of  it ;  evidently  they  know  their  danger,  and  think  safety 
lies  in  speed.  If  they  can  be  got  to  cross  like  this,  there  is  sport 
in  it,  provided  the  rides  are  not  too  wide.  If  they  are  wide,  you 
make  a  certainty  of  your  shot,  and  the  sport  is  less.  The  best 
sporting  width  is  that  which  causes  an  uncertainty  as  to  whether 
the  shot  succeeded,  and  an  examination  in  the  bushes  to  see 


320  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

whether  the  shot  was  well  or  ill  timed.  That  is  to  say,  the  best 
sport  is  when  the  bushes  take  up  a  lot  of  the  pellets  and  the 
rabbit  is  out  of  sight  before  the  snap  shot  is  off. 

Gas  tar  is  as  good  as  anything  to  keep  rabbits  out  of  their 
holes.  It  is  not  bad  when  properly  employed  to  get  them  out. 
But  as  strong-smelling  stuffs  are  generally  used,  they  keep  the 
rabbits  in  their  holes  for  one,  two,  or  three  nights,  until  hunger 
compels  an  exit  past  the  paper  dipped  in  tar.  It  is  a  good  plan 
to  put  the  paper  down  the  holes  only  on  the  windward  side  of 
the  burrows ;  this  has  the  effect  of  blowing  the  smell  through  the 
whole  of  the  compartments,  but  leaves  open  bolt  holes  where 
nothing  will  impede.  The  next  day  the  other  side  of  the 
burrow  can  be  doctored,  and  this  will  prevent  re-entry.  After 
this,  shooting  may  take  place  without  many  uninjured  rabbits 
going  to  ground,  but  the  wounded  will  go  in  and  die  there; 
consequently,  there  is  nothing  like  stopping  out  if  the  rabbits 
can  be  got  out.  A  very  effective  plan  for  this  is  the  use  of  a 
line  ferret.  It  is  best  not  to  let  the  ferret  try  and  bolt  the 
rabbits  ;  that  takes  too  much  time.  But  if  it  is  run  through  the 
holes  one  day  and  tar-paper  is  inserted  the  next,  most  of  the 
rabbits  will  be  found  to  have  had  pressing  business  elsewhere. 
Consequently,  they  can  be  shot,  and  give  better  sport  than  if  they 
had  been  subjected  to  back-scratching  by  the  ferret's  poison 
claws.  But  probably  the  best  way  of  all,  where  the  holes  are 
not  amongst  rocks,  is  to  fill  up  all  entrances  with  a  clod  of  soil 
or  turf  and  sprinkle  the  latter  with  gas  tar  or  spirits  of  tar. 
Twenty-four  hours  later  the  process  has  to  be  repeated,  for  the 
rabbits  will  have  scratched  out.  This  should  be  repeated  every 
day  until  the  shoot  occurs,  but  only  the  first  stopping  will  be 
much  trouble ;  there  will  be  few  holes  to  stop  afterwards.  In 
trying  to  make  a  big  bag  it  is  very  necessary  to  put  down 
netting  to  keep  the  rabbits  off  the  beaten  ground.  Stops  will 
do,  but  are  not  as  effective  as  the  net. 

The  preservation  of  rabbits  implies,  of  course,  the  destruction 
of  vermin,  especially  cats.  The  next  necessity  is  fresh  blood  in 
January  or  February,  and  early  and  close  shooting  or  trapping. 
Rabbits  degenerate  quicker  than  most  animals,  and  in-breeding 


RABBIT  SHOOTING  321 

and  stale  ground  are  the  worst  causes.  On  some  soils  Hme- 
dressing  seems  to  be  absolutely  necessary  for  the  continued 
health  and  reproductive  powers  of  rabbits  in  warrens.  Out  of 
warrens,  and  especially  where  they  are  not  wanted,  nothing 
seems  to  injure  them.  Neither  disease,  vermin,  nor  the  school- 
boy's gun  will  do  them  any  damage  where  they  are  not 
encouraged.  This  is  probably  because  they  are  most  healthy 
where  they  are  most  scarce,  and  it  is  only  nature's  justice  that  if 
they  poison  the  grass  they  should  poison  themselves  also. 

Shooting  rabbits  over  ferrets  requires  much  more  attention 
than  it  is  worth.     The  rabbit  always  seems  to  bolt  well  when 
the  shooter  is  not  attending;  when  he  is  all  expectation,  the 
rabbit  comes  and  looks  at  him,  pokes  his  head  out  of  the  hole, 
where  to  shoot  him  would  be  to  destroy  his  value.     Then,  just 
as  the  ferret  must  be  getting  up  to  the  quarry's  tail  to  make  him 
bolt,  the  head  disappears  and  is  seen  no  more.     Then  in  ten 
minutes  or  half  an  hour  the  experienced  person  says  it  will  be 
necessary  to  dig,  because  the  ferret  is  lying  up,  or  if  he  is  muzzled 
he  is  probably  pounded,  with  rabbits'  backs  to  scratch  on  all 
sides  of  him,  but  no  rabbits  to  bolt.     Then,  when  the  most 
unexpected  event  does  take  place,  and  the  rabbits  do  bolt  well, 
those   you  wound   are   sure   to   go   to   ground  with  a  broken 
leg  or  shoulder,  and  so  stop  proceedings,  either  by  detaining  the 
ferret  or  by  informing  their  fellows.     Ferreting  is  not  nearly  as 
good  sport  as  shooting  stopped-out  rabbits.     When  beaters  for 
the  latter  are  used,  they  should  make  no  noise.     The  object  is 
not  that  the  quarry  should  quietly  canter  along  in  front  of  a  line 
of  guns,  but  you  will  want  them  to  lie  well,  so  that  when  dis- 
turbed in  close  contact  with  some  beater's  stick  they  may  run  well. 
The  former  they  will  do  if  there  is  fair  covert  to  lie  in  and  no 
noise,  not  even  "tapping"  of  sticks.     The  latter  they  will  do 
if  they  are  poked  up  with  a  stick  instead  of  being  thrashed  up 
with  a  stake.     The  biggest  record  of  rabbit  shooting  is  that  of 
5096  rabbits  to  nine  guns  in  the  day.     This  was  in  1885,  ^^ 
Mr.    J.    Lloyd    Price's    Rhiwlas    warren.      The    load    of   shot 
best  for  shooting  warren  rabbits,  or  any  others  if  other  game 
is   not   to   be   bagged,  is    2    oz.   of   No.    3    shot.     This   saves 
21 


322  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

plastering,  and  enables  both  near  shots  and  long  ones  to  be 
taken.  It  was  the  load  used  with  Schultze  powder  when  the 
bag  above  mentioned  was  made.  Perhaps  it  is  not  correct  to 
talk  of  a  bag  of  rabbits  when  such  wilful  slaughter  occurs. 
There  must  have  been  between  seven  and  eight  tons  of  rabbits 
for  that  one  day's  work. 

If  rabbits  come  out  from  a  covert  to  feed  in  a  rough  banky 
grass  field,  one  that  will  afford  good  sport  if  the  rabbits  lie  out 
in  it,  this  can  be  brought  about  by  means  of  wire  netting,  the 
lower  part  of  which  is  set  so  as  to  fall  by  the  pulling  of  a  string. 
However,  half  the  fun  is  lost  when  rabbits  are  shot  out  of 
woods.  This  plan  for  keeping  the  beasts  out  of  their  coverts  is 
perhaps  more  useful  in  snow  when  the  trees  are  in  danger,  and 
when,  too,  the  rabbits  highly  appreciate  the  hay  in  the  sheep 
racks.  Indeed,  feeding  with  ^5  worth  of  hay  would  often  save 
;^500  worth  of  young  trees. 

The  enclosing  of  warrens  with  wire  netting  is  a  simple 
matter,  and  the  principle  should  be  that  rabbits  can  get  in  but 
cannot  get  out.  This  is  easy  enough  to  arrange.  There  must  be 
turned-in  wire  at  both  the  top  and  bottom,  and  turned-out  wire  at 
the  bottom.  This  rests  on  the  ground,  and  there  is  no  need  to  put 
it  underneath.  About  6  inches  of  turning-in  is  enough.  Three 
feet  6  inches  is  about  the  best  height  for  wire,  although  if 
the  ground  is  quite  flat  probably  3  feet  and  an  over-lap  of 
6  inches  to  prevent  climbing  from  the  inside  is  enough.  Then  if, 
on  the  outside  in  several  places,  a  wall  of  turf  is  built  as  high 
as  the  fencing,  and  a  single  turf  is  laid  as  a  lead  on  to  the  over- 
lay of  netting,  rabbits  will  enter  freely,  but  will  not  get  out 
again.  It  is  thought  best  to  use  graduated  wire,  very  small  at 
the  ground  in  order  to  keep  in  the  young  ones,  but  it  may  be 
that  the  warrener  will  wish  the  young  ones  to  fare  the  best,  and 
in  that  case,  if  the  crops  outside  permit,  it  may  be  a  help  to  the 
young  rabbits  to  let  them  escape  through  netting  that  keeps  in 
the  old  ones.  They  will  all  come  in  again  some  time  by  means 
of  the  external  turf  walls,  and  then,  having  grown  big,  will  have 
to  remain. 


HARES 

TO  the  insular  Britisher  there  are  only  two  sorts  of  hares, 
the  brown  and  the  blue.  Possibly  they  cross  breed,  but 
naturalists  are  mostly  opposed  to  this  view.  However,  if  they 
do  not  cross,  the  writer  has  seen  specimens  in  Caithness  which 
he  could  not  assign  to  either  race.  Nowhere  else  in  Scotland 
does  there  seem  to  be  much  ground  inhabited  by  both  species. 

The  blue  hare  is  not  only  a  creature  of  the  moors,  but  of  the 
top  moors.  The  brown  hare  never  goes  up  there  by  any  chance 
but  he  often  occupies  moors  of  low  level  bordering  the  cultivation. 
In  Caithness  the  highest  tops  are  usually  not  very  high,  and 
the  blue  hares  are  often  found  on  the  moor  only  a  few  feet 
above  sea-level.  Consequently  there  are  opportunities  for  cross 
breeding  which  in  the  other  counties  rarely  exist. 

Hares  are  said  to  be  very  prolific,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact 
they  increase  only  very  slowly:  what  they  might  do  in  more 
favourable  circumstances  is  another  matter.  One  writer  affirms 
that  when  a  brace  was  confined  in  a  walled  garden  there 
were  57  hares  counted  at  the  end  of  one  year.  That  is 
possibly  correct,  and  yet  the  hare  does  not  breed  well  in  confine- 
ment, which  is  the  reason  that  parks  are  more  often  devoted 
to  deer  and  sheep  than  to  hares,  even  when  they  are  nominally 
hare  parks.  The  late  Lord  Powerscourt  introduced  brown  hares 
into  his  park  in  Ireland,  where  they  did  not  increase ;  and  the 
late  Mr.  Assheton-Smith,  of  Vaynol  Park,  introduced  the  blue 
Alpine  hare  there.  In  Ireland  the  latter  is  indigenous,  but  does 
not  in  winter  change  to  white,  with  tips  of  black  upon  its  ears, 
as  it  does  in  Scotland  and  upon  the  Continent. 

Country  Life  \\?i'~>  lately  reproduced  a  photograph  of  a  family 

323 


324  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

of  six  brown  leverets,  and  it  is  evidently  wrong  to  affirm  that 
from  two  to  five  is  the  limit  of  numbers  produced,  as  was  done 
in  Country  Lifes  Shooting  Book.  Seven  is  the  greatest  number 
reported,  but  this  requires  confirmation.  What  has  given  the 
impression  that  two  or  three  are  the  usual  numbers  produced  is 
the  fact  that  the  hare  does  not  seem  to  confine  herself  to  one 
nest.  All  her  eggs  are  not  put  in  one  basket,  and  this  is 
instinctive  wisdom  ;  for  little  leverets  give  out  a  good  deal  of 
scent  even  when  quite  young,  and  are  easily  found  by  foxes  and 
dogs.  Cats  are  not  fond  of  ranging  the  open  fields,  but  prefer 
hedgerow  and  covert,  so  that  they  are  more  dangerous  to  young 
rabbits  than  to  leverets,  which  are  generally  placed  in  the  open 
fields  without  any  sort  of  nest  or  other  protection  than  the  great 
space  about  them. 

Very  large  bags  of  hares  have  frequently  been  killed.  Lord 
Mansfield's  Perthshire  bag  of  blue  hares  once  reached  very 
nearly  1300  in  the  day  to  five  guns,  and  over  1000  brown  hares 
are  said  to  have  been  killed  in  the  day  quite  recently.  That 
the  author  has  not  verified,  but  formerly  they  must  have  been 
nearly  as  plentiful  in  Suffolk  and  Norfolk  as  they  are  now 
in  parts  of  Bohemia  and  Hungary.  Count  Karolyi,  for  some 
years  Hungarian  Ambassador  to  the  Court  of  St.  James,  once 
attempted  to  make  a  record :  he  killed  to  his  own  gun  600 
hares  in  five  hours'  shooting.  It  is  not  this  unique  feat  for 
which  Hungary  is  most  noted,  but  for  its  constant  supply  over 
a  large  number  of  days.  There  they  do  not  usually  kill  hares 
during  partridge  shooting,  but  delay  the  big  drives  until 
November.  Nevertheless,  at  Tot-Megyr,  six  days'  shooting  by 
nine  guns  produced  7500  hares  and  2500  partridges.  Probably 
Mindszent,  in  the  south  of  Hungary,  holds  the  record  for  a  day 
at  hares,  for  3000  were  killed  there  by  Count  Alexander 
Pallavicini's  ten  guns. 

Big  bags  of  hares  are  no  new  thing  in  that  country,  for 
as  long  ago  as  1753  over  18,000  hares  were  killed  with  equal 
proportions  of  partridges  in  20  days'  shooting  by  23  guns, 
including  the  Emperor  of  Austria  and  the  Princess  Charlotte. 
In  Suffolk,  in  1806,  a  complaint  of  the  number  of  hares  left  on 


HARES  325 

one  estate  was  followed  in  the  early  spring  by  the  killing  of 
6012.  Whether  this  slaughter  satisfied  the  farmers  or  no  is 
not  stated.  Probably  the  biggest  shoots  of  hares  occur  in  the 
United  States,  where  the  animals,  almost  precisely  like  our  own 
brown  hares,  are  called  "jack  rabbits."  They  have  become  so 
troublesome  to  farmers  that  the  latter  turn  out  in  regular  armies 
when  the  "trouble"  becomes  worse  than  usual,  and  the  "jack 
rabbits"  are  done  to  death  in  countless  numbers.  Another 
kind  of  hare  found  in  the  States  is  the  "  cotton  tail,"  which  in 
all  outward  appearance  is  precisely  like  our  common  rabbit, 
except  that  it  does  not  burrow.  It  is  the  perquisite  of  the 
nigger  dog,  and  if  he  is  there,  of  the  nigger  dog's  master. 

The  "jack  rabbits"  give  splendid  coursing  and  a  fine  scent 
for  hounds ;  the  "  cotton  tails  "  do  neither,  but  gun-dogs  invari- 
ably point  them.  The  hunting  of  the  hare  is  probably  the  oldest 
of  all  sports  now  practised.  It  was  rated  high  by  Xenophon 
more  than  three  centuries  before  the  Christian  era,  and 
Xenophon  would  have  made  an  excellent  master  of  harriers 
in  our  day  if  we  could  have  induced  him  to  leave  his  nets  at 
home.  The  fox  never  took  precedence  of  the  hare  until  earth- 
stopping  was  invented,  and  without  it  the  former  would  even 
now  be  the  less  worthy  as  a  quarry. 

The  brown  hare  prefers  the  open  country  to  the  woods,  and 
is  never  found  in  the  latter  until  haytime  and  harvest  have 
driven  it  out  of  the  fields.  Even  then  it  may  take  to  a  fallow 
field  in  preference  to  the  woods,  and  the  author  has  known  a 
little  10  acre  field  to  have  more  than  100  hares  in  it  upon 
such  an  occasion.  In  wet  dripping  weather — that  is,  when  the 
drip  falls  from  the  trees  in  covert  along  with  the  falling  leaf — 
hares  prefer  to  make  forms  in  the  open  fields.  These  they 
will  return  to  daily  for  weeks  together,  unless  they  are  disturbed. 
But  if  they  are  put  off  their  forms  they  do  not  often  come  back 
to  them  again,  but  make  new  ones.  Consequently,  if  it  is 
desired  to  have  a  great  day's  covert  shooting,  including  hares, 
the  open  country  should  be  beaten  for  them  several  days 
before.  The  fact  that  they  are  disturbed  will  send  them  into 
the  coverts.     On  the  other  hand,  after  the  coverts  are  beaten. 


326  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

not  a  hare  will  be  found  in  them  for  some  time,  whereas  all 
the  pheasants  that  are  left  alive  will  be  back  to  roost  the  next 
day  at  latest,  unless  they  have  been  driven  to  coverts  that  they 
know  and  like  equally  well. 

People  affect  to  despise  shooting  hares,  and  when  they  are 
driven  out  of  coverts  into  the  open  they  are  of  course  rather 
more  easy  than  pheasants  fluttering  up  at  a  corner;  but  in 
high  undergrowth,  in  covert  or  out,  they  are  much  more  often 
missed  than  pheasants.  In  standing  barley  they  are  very 
difficult,  and  if  turnips  are  really  high  they  are  not  easy  there. 
But  the  author  has  rarely  seen  clever  hare  shooting  when  the 
beasts  have  been  driven  up  to  fences  in  the  low  country,  and 
up  to  the  hilltops  in  Scotland.  It  is  true  that  if  only  one  or 
two  hares  come  together,  it  is  simplicity  itself  to  handle  them, 
but  suppose  four  hares  are  each  seen  20  yards  apart  coming  up 
to  your  stand.  If  you  can  kill  the  four,  you  understand  wood- 
craft as  well  as  shooting.  If  you  do  not  know  the  former,  you 
will  get  one  or  at  most  two  hares  and  frighten  the  others  away. 
Your  object  will  be  to  get  all  the  hares  nearly  together  before 
you  take  the  farthest  off"  one,  then  the  next  farthest  off,  and 
you  will  have  two  very  much  scared  hares  starting  probably 
from  your  very  feet  for  your  second  gun.  The  shooting  then 
becomes  extremely  difficult,  because  it  has  to  be  very  smart 
indeed.  Sometimes,  instead  of  four  you  may  have  twenty  hares 
all  within  80  yards,  and  it  has  been  known  that  by  shooting  at 
the  first  within  range  all  the  rest  have  escaped  without  a  shot. 
It  is  the  habit  of  blue  hares  to  follow  each  other  up  the  runs 
through  the  heather  or  over  the  moss  and  stones ;  when  one 
stops,  the  others  seeing  him  stop  too.  Consequently,  the  way  to 
get  them  together  is  only  to  stop  the  first  hare  when  he  has 
approached  near  and  is  also  out  of  sight  of  the  others  behind, 
which  any  little  unnevenness  of  the  ground  accomplishes.  A 
sharp  "  click,"  which  was  most  easily  accomplished  by  cocking 
a  gun  in  the  days  before  the  hammerless,  is  enough.  One 
stone  rapped  once  only  on  another  will  do  it.  But  the  hare 
must  not  see  that,  or  any  other  movement,  or  he  will  be  off 
at  once.     If  he   has  not  the   advantage   of  the  wind,  and  so 


HARES  327 

cannot  get  the  scent  of  the  guns,  a  hare  would  run  between  a 
shooter's  legs  without  seeing  him  if  he  stood  absolutely  still 
and  bestrode  the  hare  track.  But  it  is  the  "  absolute "  that 
makes  all  the  difference.  Some  people  say  that  a  hare  cannot 
see  straight  in  front  of  it,  but  this  is  a  mistake  ;  it  can  detect  the 
smallest  movement  although  directly  in  front,  and  if  it  will 
almost  run  against  you,  it  will  not  allow  you  to  walk  from  the 
direct  front  up  to  it  as  it  lies  in  its  form. 

When  hares  are  wild,  they  sit  high  in  their  forms,  and  can  be 
seen  from  a  long  distance.  However,  when  they  mean  to  lie 
close,  they  are  remarkably  difficult  to  see  even  upon  open 
ground,  except  to  those  who  know  what  to  look  for,  and  the 
most  experienced  will  often  pass  them.  Private  coursers, 
especially  when  mounted,  get  extremely  clever  at  finding 
hares  in  their  seats.  In  beating  for  them,  when  they  are  not 
wild,  the  drivers  who  take  a  straight  course  will  miss  three- 
parts  of  the  hares,  but  if  they  zigzag,  making  half-turns 
suddenly,  every  hare  will  believe  itself  seen  and  will  run. 

In  beating  flat  country  for  hares,  very  much  the  same  order 
as  in  partridge  driving  in  the  open,  and  as  in  pheasant  beating 
in  covert,  has  to  be  adopted.     Stops  and  flanks  are  a  necessity, 
but  in  driving  moorlands  a  very  different   system  is  adopted. 
The  hares  there  will  all  make  up  hill,  no  matter  which  way  the 
beaters   walk,   so   that   a   continuous   circuit   round    the   hills, 
beginning  at   the   lowest   level   and  cork-screwing  upwards,  is 
the  plan  if  there  are  not  enough  beaters  to  cover  the  slope  at 
one  operation.     If  there  are,  the  beating  is  done  as  if  it  were  the 
desire  to  drive  the  hares  along  the  slope  or  face  of  the   hill, 
but  as  they  will  all  pass  along  the  front  face  of  the   drivers 
and  mount  the  hill   either  near  or  far  on,  the  guns  will  take 
up    hidden    positions   upon    the   tops.      Any   other   system    of 
driving   blue    hares    has    been    found    from   experience   to   be 
more  or  less  misdirected  energy.     These  animals  are  not  very 
much  liked  in  the  deer  forests,  because  the  deer  understand  the 
hares'  movements  as  well  as  if  they  talked  to  each  other,  and 
a  startled  hare  usually  means  also  a  startled  stag  in  the  stalking 
season.     But  in  grouse  ground  the  hares  should  not  be  kept 


328  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

very  low  in  Scotland.  Nowhere  are  you  very  far  away  from 
a  deer  forest  and  eagles,  and  the  latter  are  satisfied  to  leave 
the  grouse  alone  if  they  can  get  blue  hare  in  summer  and 
white  hare  in  winter.  The  Alpine  hare  is  much  easier  for  an 
eagle  to  catch  than  either  grouse  or  ptarmigan. 

As  to  brown  hares,  they  can  only  be  plentiful  where  the 
relations  between  landowner  and  tenant  are  of  the  very  best. 
The  latter  can,  if  they  like,  kill  hares  all  the  year  round.  Good 
land,  a  liberal  landlord,  and  yearly  tenancies  are  the  conditions 
under  which  hares  can  thrive.  The  author  likes  to  see  plenty 
of  them  as  proofs  that  the  tenants  are  not  unsportsmanlike,  and 
that  the  keepers  are  friendly  with  the  farmers  and  enemies  to 
the  poachers.  Opposites  in  both  cases  have  not  been  quite 
unknown. 

It  has  been  said  that  hares  can  be  "  called  up  "  by  poachers. 
Perhaps  that  is  so  ;  the  only  cry  of  the  hare  the  author  has 
heard  is  that  distress  note  that  will  often,  on  the  contrary,  drive 
away  the  other  hares.  If  they  will  come  to  call,  they  must  be 
in  the  habit  of  calling.  It  is  the  note  of  the  doe  hare  that  is 
supposed  to  be  imitated.  If  she  calls  her  young  she  has  no 
cause  to  call  the  "jack  ";  she  is  found  by  him  by  the  trail  scent, 
and  is  worried  far  more  by  his  attentions  than  she  likes.  It  is 
not  uncommon  to  see  half  a  dozen  "jacks"  persecuting  one 
doe  hare,  and  continuing  to  do  so  for  hours  if  not  for  days 
together.  The  "jack"  seems  to  hunt  the  trail  of  the  doe  when 
it  is  hours  old,  and  long  after  any  harrier  would  notice  it. 

The  esteem  in  which  the  hare  was  held  in  the  Middle  Ages 
is  shown  by  a  verse  attached  to  an  English  translation  of  the 
Norman-French  Le  Art  de  Venerie^  by  William  Twici,  hunts- 
man to  King  Edward  li. : — 

"To  Venery  y  caste  me  fyrst  to  go, 

Of  wheche  iiij  best  is  be,  that  is  to  say, 

The  hare,  the  herte,  the  wulfhe,  the  wylde  boor  also  ; 

Of  venery  for  sothe  there  be  no  moe." 

Who  wrote  the  verse  does  not  appear  to  be  accurately 
known ;  evidently  it  was  not  Twici. 


SNIPE 

SNIPE  shooting  is  the  fly  fishing  of  the  shot  gun. 
There  are  only  three  species  of  snipe  that  regularly 
visit  England,  and  only  one  that  breeds  here.  This  is  the  full 
snipe.  The  great  solitary  or  double  snipe  is  rarely  seen,  and 
as  a  sporting  bird,  therefore,  does  not  count.  The  jack  snipe 
is  far  the  most  beautiful,  and  is  met  with  some  years  in  fair 
quantities,  but  is  rarely  found  in  greater  proportion  than  one 
to  five  of  the  full  snipe.  The  jack  snipe  is  rarely  missed  by  a 
deliberate  marksman,  but  a  snap  shooter  who  is  used  to  the 
quick  and  zigzag  rise  of  the  full  snipe  is  often  able  to  miss  the 
little  jacks,  for  their  flight  is  almost  that  of  a  butterfly.  Be- 
sides, the  jack  snipe  has  a  very  trying  habit  of  pitching  down 
suddenly  as  if  it  were  badly  wounded,  when  it  becomes  tempting 
to  the  shooter  to  go  and  pick  it  up  with  his  gun  at  safety. 
Then  the  little  creature  is  remarkably  hard  to  move  a  second 
time,  and  thus  suspicion  becomes  apparent  certainty,  so  that 
when  the  shooter  is  about  to  give  up  all  hope  of  finding  the 
dead  bird  the  quick  one  flies  slowly  away,  unharmed  by  a  hasty 
shot,  or  by  the  concentrated  language  which  sometimes  is 
mistakenly  supposed  to  follow.  The  jack  snipe  is  the 
comedian  of  the  gunner's  quarry.  This  2  oz.  bird  is  not  much 
of  a  mouthful  for  a  big  retriever,  and  the  only  reason  it  is 
not  usually  injured  by  even  tender-mouthed  dogs  is  probably 
because  it  and  all  the  other  species  of  the  family  are  naturally 
offensive  to  the  taste  of  the  dog.  They  never  would  be  retrieved 
from  choice,  and  the  duty  has  generally  to  be  forced  upon  the 
young  canine  assistant  of  whatever  breed  it  may  be.  Not 
many  jack  snipe  come  to  us  before  October,  but  a  few  have 

329 


330  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

been  found  in  September,  and  in  every  month  in  the  year,  which 
has  given  rise  to  the  speculation  that  they  might  have  bred 
here,  but  that  has  never  been  proved  to  have  occurred  by  the 
discovery  of  eggs.  They  are  migrants  from  the  North,  frail 
creatures  which  surrender  themselves  to  the  wind,  and  apparently 
thereby  avoid  the  wave.  At  any  rate,  large  numbers  of  them 
do  survive,  although  doubtless  many  in  adverse  winds  miss  the 
coasts  and  perish,  like  woodcocks,  in  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  The 
course  in  the  air  taken  by  these  birds  is  not  well  known.  It 
has  been  affirmed  that  many  woodcock  arrive  first  on  the  north 
and  west  coast  of  Ireland,  and  most  of  the  jack  snipe  on  the 
south-east  coast,  and  although  we  are  inclined  to  regard 
instinct — and  the  migratory  sense  is  an  instinct — as  an  uncon- 
trollable impulse  which  always  acts  in  the  same  way,  it  appears 
to  have  results  that  are  not  to  be  thus  accounted  for,  and  the 
birds  arrive  in  turn  on  all  the  coasts  and  by  various  routes. 

The  Wilson  snipe  in  America  is  closely  allied  to  our  full 
snipe,  although  it  ranks  as  a  species.  It  is  even  more  migratory 
than  our  own  bird,  some  of  which  always  breed  in  England, 
Ireland,  and  Scotland.  But  the  Wilson  snipe  leaves  the  Northern 
States  in  the  winter  and  makes  its  way  to  the  lands  warmed  by 
the  soft  airs  off  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  Snipe,  then,  in  most  of  the 
States  are  only  to  be  shot  in  the  autumn  and  spring  migrations. 
Probably  the  finest  snipe  shooting  ever  experienced  in  America, 
and  only  to  be  matched  in  India  and  Burmah,  was  that  obtained 
by  Mr.  Pringle  in  Louisiana,  an  account  of  which  he  has  pub- 
lished in  book  form. 

The  full  snipe  generally  utters  a  sharp  cry  on  taking  wing, 
the  jack  is  silent ;  but  the  breeding  cry  of  the  former  differs 
materially  from  its  note  of  fright,  and  at  the  same  time  that  it 
utters  the  former  it  sometimes  shoots  downwards  and  makes 
another  air  vibration  with  its  wings  or  tail.  This  has  been  said 
to  be  a  vocal  sound,  but  the  author  is  quite  sure  this  view  would 
not  be  held  by  anyone  who  watched  the  bird  through  a  field- 
glass.  It  may  be  seen  to  descend  while  making  the  noise 
which  has  given  it  the  rustic  name  of  "  heather  bleater,"  and  it 
does  this  with  a  closed  bill ;  but  upon  occasion  it  opens  its  bill, 


SNIPE  331 

and  then  the  vocal   sound,  as  well   as   the  other,  is  distinctly- 
heard. 

The  powers  of  flight  of  the  full  snipe  vary  with  the  time  of 
year.  The  author  once  knew  a  grouse  shooter  of  long  experi- 
ence and  success  who  prided  himself  upon  his  skill  as  a  snipe 
shot.  When,  however,  he  was  for  the  first  time  in  his  life 
taken  to  a  snipe  bog  in  November,  he  never  let  off  his  gun. 
The  birds,  he  said,  were  too  wild  to  shoot ;  but  others  shot  them, 
so  that  it  may  be  said  there  are  snipe  and  snipe.  These  birds 
seem  to  feed  all  day  and  all  night  too ;  at  any  rate  they  may  be 
found  upon  their  night  feeding-grounds  at  all  times  of  the  day, 
and  so  fond  are  they  of  favoured  places  that  they  return  to  them 
constantly.  Moreover,  if  one  bird  is  killed  on  a  favoured  boring 
ground,  another  almost  invariably  takes  his  place  in  a  few  days 
if  the  weather  remains  the  same.  If  it  does  not,  every  snipe 
in  a  neighbourhood  may  be  gone  in  a  night.  Snipe  are  de- 
pendent upon  food  they  find  by  boring  in  soft  earth,  so  that 
frost  compels  them  to  change  quarters.  As  a  rule,  wet  weather 
disperses  snipe  all  over  the  mountains  and  fields ;  they  can  then 
feed  anywhere.  Frost  sends  them  into  the  bogs,  and  still  harder 
frost  to  the  springs,  still  harder  again  to  the  west  coasts  and  to 
Ireland. 

Two  occasions  have  been  recorded  where  snipe  collected  in 
hundreds  upon  dry  arable  fields,  where  apparently  there  was 
nothing  for  them  to  feed  upon,  and  where  they  returned  after  a 
snipe  drive  had  been  instituted. 

Many  are  the  "  certain  "  methods  of  getting  on  terms  with 
these  birds,  but  they  are  all  to  be  taken  with  a  grain  of  salt. 
Whether  snipe  will  lie  best  when  hunted  for  down  or  up  wind, 
and  whether  they  should  be  shot  upon  the  rise  or  when  their 
twisting  is  done,  are  questions  to  which  different  and  emphatic 
answers  are  often  given.  However,  we  believe  in  each  by 
turn  and  nothing  long.  The  snipe  is  too  changeable  a  creature 
to  conform  to  any  rule  whatever.  He  is  nearest  consistency  in 
rising  against  the  wind,  but  even  that  depends  upon  the  rate 
of  the  wind.  When  it  is  only  blowing  gently,  the  snipe  can 
rise  away  from  you  as  you  walk  down  wind ;  but  they  cannot 


332  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

do  so  in  heavy  breeze,  and  consequently  walking  down  wind 
gives  the  easiest  shooting,  and  sometimes  also  enables  a  better 
approach  to  be  made  to  the  birds.  On  the  other  hand,  if  your 
feet  are  cracking  up  ice,  you  will  probably  not  get  near  to  the 
birds  however  you  attempt  to  approach  them,  and  they  can 
hear  you  farthest  off  when  you  are  beating  down  wind.  In 
very  wet  bogs  a  dog  will  generally  flush  more  snipe  than  he 
will  point,  but  when  they  will  lie  to  a  dog,  down  wind  is  still 
the  best  way,  for  although  your  setter  will  sometimes  flush  by 
accident,  he  will  point  a  great  many  that  otherwise  would  not 
rise  at  all,  and  this  little  4  oz.  bird  gives  out  a  great  scent, 
one  that  in  favourable  conditions  enables  a  dog  to  find  him  at 
50  and  even  100  yards.  A  curious  feature  is  that  young 
dogs  do  not  object  to  pointing  the  game,  although  they  hate 
to  mouth  it.  Indeed,  it  is  only  upon  close  approach  to  a  dead 
snipe  that  a  retriever  first  shows  his  abhorrence,  just  as  if  he 
were  suddenly  taken  by  surprise  in  his  pleasurable  anticipation 
of  mouthing  the  game.  In  the  Snipe  and  Woodcock  of  the 
Fur  and  Feather  Series,  Mr.  Shaw  gives  the  1376  snipe  killed 
in  the  1880-81  season  as  the  best  ever  made  in  the  British 
Islands,  but  this  is  nothing  compared  with  Mr.  Pringle's  work  in 
Louisiana  already  referred  to.  His  best  season  was  that  of 
1874-75,  when  his  own  gun  killed  6615  snipe.  In  twenty 
seasons  there  he  killed  to  his  own  gun  69,087  snipe,  and  his 
best  day,  on  nth  December  1877,  gave  a  bag  of  366  snipe. 
Britishers  may  be  inclined  to  doubt  whether  the  Wilson  snipe 
gives  the  same  difficult  chances  as  our  own  full  snipe,  but  their 
habits  are  identical,  as  also  is  their  flight.  Probably,  therefore, 
it  may  best  serve  as  a  guide  to  shooters  if  instead  of  the  author 
attempting  to  decide  which  method  of  beating  is  the  best,  he 
quotes  Mr.  Pringle's  words,  for  he  surely  is  the  champion 
snipe  shot. 

First,  then,  he  preferred  full  choked  hammerless  guns  by 
Purdey,  and  he  used  No,  9  shot,  with  sometimes  No.  8  in 
the  second  barrel.  Presumably  these  were  American  sizes. 
When  the  game  was  scarce,  Mr.  Pringle  used  a  pointer  or 
setter  in    the   ordinary   way,    but   when    there    were    lots   of 


SNIPE  333 

snipe  he  only  allowed   the   dog  to  point   dead,  and   not   to 
retrieve. 

He  found  that  there  was  great  loss  of  shooting  unless  he 
himself  walked  to  the  fall  of  every  dead  bird,  as  others  would 
be  sure  to  rise  near  the  spot  and  get  away  unshot  at  when  this 
duty  was  done  by  deputy.  Then  this  champion  snipe  shot 
preferred  to  beat  down  wind  with  a  beater  each  side  of  him, 
but  when  he  beat  across  the  wind,  as  would  be  done  if  the 
ground  was  awkward  for  the  other  method,  he  had  both  beaters 
down  wind  of  him,  because  of  the  habit  snipe  have  of  rising 
into  the  wind.  By  having  the  beaters  a  little  behind  him,  as 
well  as  on  the  down-wind  side,  he  thus  got  shots  at  birds  they 
flushed,  which  would  not  have  been  the  case  had  they  been 
up  wind  of  the  gun.  When  the  end  of  the  beat  was  reached, 
time  was  saved  by  driving  back,  over  the  ground  already  beaten, 
to  take  another  down-wind  beat.  The  ground  must  have  been 
particularly  sound  for  good  snipe  bog.  Walking  up  wind  was 
sometimes  necessary,  and  then  the  arrangement  of  the  beaters, 
of  which  there  were  two,  was  the  same  as  for  the  down-wind 
beat,  but  the  wilder  the  snipe  were  the  farther  behind  the  gun 
the  beaters'  line  was  formed. 

Mr.  Pringle  only  used  one  gun,  had  no  loader,  and  explains 
that  with  a  second  weapon  he  could  have  killed  many  more 
birds.  Probably  most  people  will  not  be  sorry  that  he  did 
confine  himself  to  one  gun. 

The  best  snipe  bag  made  in  England  in  a  day  does  not  at 
all  compare  with  that  from  the  New  Orleans  district  just  quoted. 
Mr.  R.  Fellowes  is  credited  with  158  in  a  day,  and  Lord 
Leicester  at  Holkham,  in  i860,  with  156  to  his  own  gun  in  the 
day.  In  County  Sligo  959  birds  were  killed  in  the  season 
1877-78  by  Mr.  Edward  Gethin ;  and  Mr.  Lloyd  in  1820 
wrote  that  he  accounted  for  13 10  snipe,  whereas  Mr.  Mottram 
in  the  Hebrides  in  1884  killed  992  snipe  to  his  own  gun  by 
the  end  of  October.  Sir  R.  Payne  Gallwey  tells  us  of  an  Irish 
bag  of  212  birds  in  a  day  by  one  gun  before  the  time  of  breech- 
loaders, but  does  not  mention  the  shooter's  name. 

The  moon  has  been  credited  with  a  good  deal  of  influence 


334  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

upon  the  behaviour  of  snipe ;  this  is  on  the  ground  that  they 
cannot  feed  in  the  dark.  But  what  is  dark  to  a  night  bird? 
Probably  there  is  no  such  thing ;  certainly  the  fly-by-nights  do 
not  kill  themselves  by  flying  against  trees,  and  more  than  that, 
the  snipe  never  does  feed  by  sight.  He  bores  in  the  ground  to 
feel  for  the  worm ;  when  he  has  felt  its  position,  he  brings  out 
his  bill  and  thrusts  it  in  again  in  the  right  spot,  and  out  comes 
the  worm.  Then  he  repeats  the  process.  If  these  birds  are 
not  always  hungry,  they  must  stand  guard  over  their  favourite 
boring  patches  until  they  get  so,  for  they  rarely  go  away  from 
them  to  rest  upon  foodless  ground  unless  they  are  disturbed 
either  by  men,  dogs,  or  weather. 

Very  few  men  ever  excel  in  snipe  shooting.  The  actual 
aiming  at  a  snipe  is  the  difficulty.  He  may  be  there  when 
you  aim,  but  is  not  there  when  the  shot  arrives.  If  you  wait 
until  he  has  done  his  zigzag  flight,  he  is  almost  sure  to  be  too 
far  off.  If  you  can  shoot  just  above  him,  when  his  wing  goes 
up  for  a  twist,  and  at  a  distance  of  40  or  45  yards,  with  No.  8 
shot,  you  will  probably  kill  him.  That,  however,  is  not  very 
helpful  advice,  and  the  only  thing  that  the  author  can  say 
that  is  likely  to  be  so  is  that  the  snipe  becomes  easy,  by 
comparison,  when  he  rises  against  the  wind  and  shows  his  white 
breast  to  the  gunner.  The  author  has  killed  fourteen  August 
snipe  in  as  many  consecutive  shots,  but  he  has  done  no  such 
thing  with  November  snipe  on  a  crisp  day,  and  it  would 
therefore  ill  become  him  to  say  how  it  can  be  done,  for  the 
very  good  reason  that  he  does  not  know. 

The  snipe  is  credited  with  great  pace,  but  in  shooting 
driven  snipe  it  soon  becomes  evident  that  they  do  not  require 
half  as  much  allowance  as  a  partridge.  It  is  the  twist  that 
makes  pretence  that  they  are  actually  fast.  They  are  particularly 
smart  and  quick,  but  distinctly  not  fast  in  the  sense  that  a 
driven  grouse  down  wind  is  speedy. 


WOODCOCKS 

WOODCOCK  shooting  over  a  team  of  spaniels   is   the 
fox-hunting  of  shooting,  according  to  Colonel  Peter 
Hawker. 

It  is  generally  stated  that  woodcocks  are  decreasing  in 
numbers  of  late  years,  but  this  is  possibly  a  mistake.  At  any 
rate.  Lord  Ardilaun  has  at  Ashford  made  the  biggest  bag  ever 
known  in  Ireland  only  eleven  years  ago — namely,  205  'cock 
in  the  day;  and  in  1905  the  record  bag  for  Cornwall  was 
accomplished,  but  this  is  far  from  being  the  record  for 
England  also.  Still,  there  is  no  proof  that  because  a  big  bag 
is  made  in  one  day  that  there  are  as  many  birds  as  formerly 
killed  in  any  one  season.  Be  this  as  it  may,  our  method  of 
covert  shooting  is  now  very  much  in  favour  of  the  woodcocks. 
Formerly,  when  they  were  the  principal  game  of  the  coverts,  the 
latter  used  to  be  beaten  as  often  as  it  was  believed  there  were 
woodcocks  in  them.  Now  this  is  by  no  means  the  case. 
Coverts  are  beaten  once,  twice,  or  thrice  in  a  season,  and  times 
are  fixed  with  no  regard  whatever  to  the  woodcocks.  If  it  is 
an  open  season,  the  inland  woodcocks  are  likely  enough  to  be 
there  when  the  date  for  pheasant  shooting  comes ;  but  if  hard 
frost  has  set  in  the  birds  will  have  gone  on  to  the  west  coasts  of 
Scotland,  Wales,  and  Ireland,  and  possibly  also  many  may  have 
passed  on  into  Spain.  Then  we  say  it  is  a  bad  season  in 
England  for  woodcocks,  but  that  is  merely  because  we  beat  our 
coverts  after  the  bird  has  flown.  Still,  possibly  the  best  season 
for  woodcocks  in  England  is  that  which  most  favours  the  killing 
and  also  the  preservation  of  the  birds,  if  that  is  not  paradoxical. 

When  they  are  found  all  over  the  country  in  mild  winters,  they 

335 


336  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

escape  the  guns  for  the  most  part,  because  their  even  distribution 
does  not  favour  their  being  looked  for  of  set  purpose. 

Comparatively  few  are  killed  in  the  pheasant  coverts,  even 
if  many  are  seen.  The  guns  are  set  in  the  line  of  flight  of  the 
pheasants,  and  whatever  set  purpose  a  migrant  woodcock  may 
have  by  night,  his  only  purpose  by  day  is  to  have  no  purpose 
at  all.  You  can  never  trust  him  to  go  a  hundred  yards  in  any 
one  direction,  and  for  this  reason  he  offers  more  chances  to  the 
beaters,  who  have  no  guns,  than  to  the  sportsmen  who  have 
them.  On  the  contrary,  when  the  frost  comes  early  and  drives 
the  birds  to  those  shores  that  know  the  Gulf  Stream,  then  the 
woodcocks  congregate  in  coverts,  and  are  made  the  special 
objects  of  the  sportsmen's  attentions.  The  longer  the  frosts 
and  snows  last  the  more  'cock  are  killed,  and  sometimes  it 
happens  that  a  stay  is  made  to  these  exterminating  proceedings 
by  the  abject  poverty  and  weakness  of  the  birds.  This  has 
occasionally  been  the  case  in  Ireland,  and  the  fact  that  these 
birds  were  caught  by  frost  and  snow  on  one  side,  and  by  the 
Atlantic  on  the  other,  shows  that  migration  is  not  always 
salvation  to  the  migrant.  Just  why  the  birds  became  so  weak 
as  not  to  be  able  to  go  forward  to  Spain  or  Africa,  it  is  difficult 
to  say.  But  possibly  those  that  get  starved  in  this  way  are 
the  late  arrivals  that  find  themselves  weakened  by  much  flying 
when  they  first  arrive  on  the  Irish  coast,  and  without  food  can 
go  no  farther.  Probably  those  already  there  when  the  food 
begins  to  get  scarce  do  go  on. 

Whether  the  woodcock  are  generally  increasing  or  not,  no 
doubt  there  are  more  home  breeding  'cock  than  formerly. 
There  is  scarce  a  boggy  birch  wood  in  Scotland  that  has  not 
its  young  woodcock  in  August,  and  obviously  these  birds  are 
bred  there.  They  are  not  then  much  good  for  the  table,  and 
if  sportsmen  would  make  a  rule  not  to  shoot  them  they  would 
probably  increase  much  faster  than  they  do.  Most  of  the 
foreign  woodcocks  come  to  us  in  October  and  November.  Then 
they  appear  to  settle  to  rest  on  the  first  land  they  see,  but 
they  are  to  be  found  there  only  for  a  few  hours,  and  go  on  and 
distribute  themselves  over  their  favourite  country  very  quickly. 


WOODCOCKS  337 

The  sea  walls  and  sea  banks,  especially  when  rough  fringed 
with  grass,  are  favourite  places  for  these  new  arrivals,  which  in 
Lincolnshire  are  in  good  condition  when  they  first  come  in, 
but  are  said  to  be  poor  and  weak  on  arrival  on  the  shores 
of  Devon.  In  Ireland  the  first  arrivals,  and  the  majority,  settle 
on  the  extreme  north.  Next  in  proportion,  lighthouse  informa- 
tion shows,  they  arrive  by  the  west  coast.  The  snipe  also 
arrive  mostly  from  the  north,  but  the  jack  snipe  come  in 
largest  numbers  to  the  south-east  coast  of  Ireland.  This 
points  to  the  conclusion  that  woodcock  arrive  mostly  from 
Scotland,  and  it  is  suggested  that  those  which  breed  farthest 
north  first  move  south  by  stress  of  weather.  It  is  also 
suggested  that  our  home-bred  woodcock  do  not  remain  in  the 
winter,  but  move  late  in  August  or  early  in  September.  These 
contentions  are  evidently  conflicting,  and  it  is  probable  that  the 
first  is  right,  and  that  our  home-bred  birds  remain  where  food 
and  shelter  is  plentiful,  and  only  move  when  they  are  not.  The 
absence  of  home-bred  birds  in  certain  coverts  in  September 
has  often  been  noted  after  they  have  been  constantly  observed 
in  August,  but  this  can  often  be  accounted  for  by  the  springs 
running  dry  in  the  latter  part  of  August,  and  available  food 
being  consequently  scarce.  The  old  birds  are  said  to  moult  in 
September,  and  if  this  is  correct  it  is  a  very  good  reason  why 
they  should  be  difficult  to  find  then  ;  and  if  this  habit  is 
invariable,  it  would  be  clear  evidence  against  the  home-breeding 
birds  migrating  in  that  month. 

It  appears  that  woodcock  can  be  encouraged  by  planting 
in  suitable  places,  and  that  this  encouragement  is  not  only  to 
the  migrants,  but  induces  more  birds  to  remain  and  breed  here. 
The  increase  of  the  latter  habit  has  been  a  startling  and 
pleasing  fact  in  natural  history.  Its  originating  cause  is  not 
known,  but  that  an  enormous  increase  has  taken  place  is  freely 
admitted.  As  the  birds  themselves  have  started  this  habit,  it 
appears  that  it  is  only  necessary  to  spare  large  numbers  of  these 
natives  to  still  further  increase  the  number  of  home-breeding 
'cock. 

But  no  way  of  distinguishing  them  when  on  the  wing  seems 

22 


338  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

to  be  possible,  although  most  useful  work  has  been  done  by  the 
Duke  of  Northumberland,  at  Alnwick,  in  placing  a  metal  ring 
round  a  leg  of  all  young  woodcock  found  there.  Amongst  other 
things  thus  established  is  that  the  movements  of  birds  seem  to 
be  governed  by  no  law  capable  of  definition.  For  instance, 
a  bird  bred  at  Alnwick  has  been  shot  in  the  Highlands  of 
Scotland,  whereas  others  have  been  shot  in  the  extreme  south 
of  England,  and  another  in  Ireland.  But  the  strangest  part  of 
the  story  is  that  most  of  them  do  not  appear  to  have  been  shot 
at  all.  Perhaps  in  that  fact  may  lie  the  explanation  why  the 
home  breeding  of  woodcocks  increases. 

It  has  been  said  that  coverts  devoted  to  pheasants  save  the 
lives  of  many  'cock,  but  it  is  also  said  that  these  birds  do  not 
like  coverts  in  which  there  are  many  pheasants.  It  is  suggested 
that  the  pheasants  eat  all  the  food,  such  as  insects  and  worms, 
to  be  found  under  the  dead  leaves.  There  appears  to  be  very 
little  in  this  contention.  A  woodcock  in  covert  is  generally  a 
woodcock  asleep  and  not  feeding.  When  flushed  he  is  as  foolish 
as  a  daylight  owl.  But  in  hard  weather,  when  he  has  been 
unable  to  get  enough  food  by  night,  and  is  compelled  to  feed  in 
the  daytime  also,  and  when  you  find  him  on  the  brook-side,  he 
is  no  fool  then,  and  can  fly  as  quickly  as  a  snipe,  and  is  as  much 
on  the  alert.  The  difference  in  manner  proves  that  the  wood- 
cocks are  very  rarely  feeding  when  flushed  by  the  beaters.  In 
Ireland  and  the  west  of  Scotland  the  warm  heather-clad  hills 
hold  the  woodcock  more  than  the  coverts  do,  until  the  birds  are 
driven  by  snow  or  hail  to  the  woods.  Rain  and  mist  will  after- 
wards drive  the  'cock  out  of  the  coverts  and  back  to  the  hills, 
but  it  is  thought  that  at  Ashford  fewer  go  back  to  the  heather 
on  each  occasion,  so  that  the  longer  shooting  is  delayed  in 
January  the  more  birds  there  are  in  those  coverts. 

Woodcocks  lay  four  eggs ;  they  pair,  probably  have  two 
broods  each  season,  and  they  are  in  the  habit  of  carrying  the 
young  birds  out  to  the  feeding-grounds.  They  hold  them  by 
various  methods :  sometimes  they  clasp  them  to  the  breast 
by  the  pressure  of  the  bill,  sometimes  they  clasp  them 
between  the  legs  or  thigh.     One  woodcock  has  been   seen  to 


WOODCOCKS  339 

carry  two  young  birds  together,  one  by  each  of  the  methods 
described. 

Probably  no  bird  gives  a  more  easy  shot  than  a  woodcock, 
and  at  the  same  time  none  is  so  often  missed.  The  reason  may 
be  that  shooters  are  inclined  to  shoot  at  twice  the  distance  (at 
what  they  consider  the  "  come-by-chance  ")  that  they  fire  at  the 
game  bred  on  and  by  the  estate.  They  are  also  frequently  a 
little  excited  by  the  cry  of  'cock,  and  besides  this,  the  birds  have 
a  queer  habit  of  twisting  round  any  tree  trunk  or  bush  that 
happens  to  be  near.  These  side  darts  are  made  with  a  good 
deal  of  pace,  even  by  birds  that  have  been  flying  like  owls. 
They  seem  to  be  the  outcome  of  sudden  impulse ;  it  would  not 
be  correct  to  call  them  sudden  resolutions,  because  whatever 
they  are  due  to  they  are  liable  to  constant  change.  These 
twists  are  often  at  right  angles  to  the  previous  flight.  The 
birds  seldom  go  far  in  one  direction,  but  have  often  been 
known  to  take  a  flight  of  !^alf  a  mile,  with  several  of  these  right- 
angle  turns  in  it,  and  to  settle  after  all  within  a  few  yards  of  the 
place  whence  they  were  flushed. 

The  shooting  of  the  woodcocks  over  setters  or  spaniels  in 
the  heather  is  extremely  pretty  work,  but  only  a  dog  experienced 
on  this  kind  of  game  is  of  much  use.  In  covert  the  woodcock  is 
rarely  shot  to  spaniels,  except  in  South  Wales.  The  usual  plan 
is  a  party  of  guns  and  beaters,  and  Lord  Ardilaun  hardly  ever 
uses  canine  retrievers.  The  rocks  make  marking  essential,  and 
it  is  found  that  good  markers  are  preferable  to  good  dogs  in 
ground  so  rough  as  to  be  difficult  for  the  latter. 

Bags  of  woodcock  at  Lord  Ardilaun's  place  have  very 
frequently  been  misstated.  Possibly  the  most  "  authoritative  " 
mistake  is  in  The  Snipe  and  Woodcock^  by  Mr.  L.  H.  de  Visme 
Shaw,  who  says  that  in  one  day  508  'cock  were  obtained  at 
Ashford.  That  is  not  so.  Lord  Ardilaun  very  kindly  informed 
the  author  that  205  'cock  was  his  best,  but  he  explained  that  he 
was  away  from  his  game  book  at  the  time  he  wrote,  and  it  is 
very  likely,  therefore,  that  Mr.  R.  J.  Ussher  is  right  in  giving 
209  'cock  as  the  record  for  one  day  there.  The  205  'cock  were 
killed  in  January  1895,  and  at  that  time  there  were  508  'cock 


340  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

killed  in  six  days  by  seven  guns.  The  big  day  was  January  25th. 
Although  not  in  a  day,  in  a  season,  more  'cock  have  been  killed 
at  Muckross,  near  Killarney,  than  even  at  Ashford,  or  than 
anywhere  else  in  the  United  Kingdom. 

Several  people  besides  the  artist  Chantrey  have  accidentally 
killed  two  woodcocks  at  a  shot.  Possibly  it  was  never  done 
by  design. 

Probably  the  best  single  day's  bag  in  England  was  that  of 
lOi  birds  in  Swanton  Wood,  on  Lord  Hastings'  Norfolk  estate. 


BLACK  GAME 

THE  season  for  these  birds  opens  in  the  North  on  20th 
August,  and  in  the  South  on  ist  September.  They  have 
been  lately  exterminated  in  the  New  Forest  and  in  Norfolk,  and 
have  long  since  disappeared  in  most  of  the  counties  south-east 
of  Staffordshire.  In  Salop  and  Wales  there  are  a  few  of  them, 
as  there  are  also  in  Devonshire  and  Somersetshire  and  in  all  the 
northern  counties.  They  are  and  always  have  been  absent 
from  Ireland,  but  are  found  throughout  the  Highlands  and  the 
border  counties,  and  are  far  more  numerous  in  Dumfriesshire 
and  Selkirkshire  than  elsewhere.  Probably  the  species  is  de- 
creasing in  numbers  everywhere,  except  in  isolated  patches  of 
country  where  they  are  especially  preserved.  They  are  found 
throughout  North  Europe  and  North  Asia,  but  in  the  Caucasus 
there  is  a  second  and  only  other  species,  which  is  smaller,  and 
in  which  the  cocks  are  blacker,  than  in  our  species.  A  peculiarity 
of  black  game  is  that  the  cocks  do  not  acquire  the  lyre  tails  until 
the  third  year,  although  the  hens  are  said  to  be  fertile  in  the 
second  year.  The  white  under  the  tail  of  the  black  cocks  is 
flecked  with  black  until  the  bird  grows  old,  when  the  black 
gradually  disappears.  It  is  not  at  all  uncommon  to  see  beautiful 
word  painting  detailing  the  glories  of  the  lyre  tail,  amongst  other 
beauties,  on  20th  August,  but  this  is  not  painting  from  nature, 
for  neither  old  nor  young  birds  have  the  lyre  tail  at  that  time. 
The  old  birds  are  then  in  full  moult,  and  although  they  can  fly 
as  well  as  ever,  they  lie  to  dogs  then  as  at  no  other  time  of  the 
year,  except  in  July  and  the  earlier  days  of  August.  No  one 
would  wish  these  old  stagers  to  be  shot  then,  where  they  are 
numerous  enough  to  afford  driving  later  in  the  season.     But 

341 


342  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

where  they  are  scarce,  and  that  is  nearly  everywhere,  they  are 
liable  to  become  more  so  by  the  inability  of  sportsmen  to  kill 
them  at  the  only  time  of  year  they  can  be  approached.  The 
man  who  shoots  them  during  the  first  seven  days  of  grouse 
shooting  breaks  the  law,  but  assists  to  save  the  race;  for  too 
many  cocks  there  always  are,  and  the  majority  of  them  are  too 
old,  and  interfere  with  their  younger  relations  in  the  breeding 
season.  This  cannot  be  avoided  as  long  as  sportsmen  make  a 
practice  of  killing  the  young  birds  over  dogs  during  grouse 
shooting.  Until  after  ist  September  the  birds  of  the  year  lie 
close  and  to  their  sorrow  rise  singly,  so  that  one  has  but  to  find 
a  brood  and  exterminate  it.  The  old  cock  will  not  be  with  the 
chicks,  and  probably  the  grey  hen  will  get  shot ;  but  she  is  more 
likely  to  escape  than  any  of  the  young  ones.  Consequently, 
where  the  birds  are  not  separately  driven  later  in  the  season,  the 
preservation  and  shooting  of  this  fine  game  bird  proceeds  upon 
the  principle  of  killing  all  the  young  ones  and  leaving  all  the 
old.  That  is  exactly  opposite  to  the  principle  adopted  for  all 
other  game,  and  we  cannot  wonder  that  the  race  decreases  in 
numbers.  Another  reason  for  the  decrease  is  that  moorlands 
are  being  more  drained  than  they  formerly  were,  and  this 
destroys  the  rushes,  upon  the  seeds  of  which  young  black  game 
mostly  live  in  their  early  period.  They  do  not  breed  in  the 
woods,  but  prefer  to  have  their  chicks  on  the  lower  moors,  where 
they  can  find  rushes,  heather,  and  bracken.  Whether  they  eat 
bracken  in  its  early  stages  of  growth,  as  pheasants  have  been 
known  to  do,  the  author  is  not  aware,  but  upon  the  moorlands 
around  St.  Mary's  Loch,  where  there  are  no  coverts,  there  used 
to  be  large  numbers  of  black  game,  and  in  hunting  the  moors 
they  were  rarely  to  be  found  elsewhere  than  in  the  rushes  and 
the  ferns.  Probably,  therefore,  ferns  as  well  as  rushes  are  useful 
in  some  way  to  them,  although  it  may  be  because  ferns  are  a 
great  resort  of  flies.  The  way  that  every  young  bird  has  to  be 
found  separately,  and  each  gives  the  dog  a  point  (whereas  the 
grouse  in  most  counties  rise  in  broods),  makes  the  keepers 
treasure  the  black  game  for  the  dog-breaking  facilities  they 
offer.     They  teach  dogs  to  believe  that  there  is  always  another 


BLACK  GAME  343 

in  the  heather,  until  they  are  sure  there  is  not.  But  black  game 
offer  very  easy  shots,  and  consequently  sportsmen  rather  despise 
them  in  this  early  stage.  Then,  on  a  sudden,  a  total  change 
comes  over  the  young  birds,  as  it  were  in  a  night,  and  they  are 
transformed  into  birds  as  wary  as  wild  geese,  and  sit  up  on  the 
hillocks  to  watch  for  danger.  After  that  they  must  be  stalked, 
driven,  or  left  alone. 

Stalking  black  game  with  a  rook  rifle  is  nice  sport — infinitely 
more  difficult  than  stalking  red  deer.  With  the  shot  gun  it  is 
still  harder,  because  of  the  necessity  of  a  nearer  approach. 
But  difficult  as  it  is,  the  author  once  knew  of  a  most  extra- 
ordinary stalk.  Two  guns,  unknown  to  each  other,  both  stalked 
from  different  directions  the  same  black  cock  on  his  fir  tree; 
both,  by  luck  or  judgment,  got  up  to  the  game ;  each  fired  at 
the  same  instant,  and  when  the  game  fell,  each  unaware  that 
the  other  had  shot,  claimed  the  bird.  If  that  sort  of  thing  can 
be  done,  it  cannot  be  very  difficult.  But  probably  it  never 
happened  before  or  since,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  difficult 
to  stalk  black  game. 

If  these  birds  were  really  plentiful  they  would  be  the  most 
valued  of  all  our  game  birds  for  driving.  Probably  there  is  not 
a  pin  to  choose  between  their  pace  and  that  of  grouse  when 
coming  down  wind.  The  author  has  watched  them  coming  to 
the  butts  together  for  half  a  mile,  and  the  only  difference  was 
that  the  black  cock  were  two  storeys  higher  than  the  grouse. 
That  shows  which  would  be  most  appreciated  by  sportsmen, 
who  are  never  happy  unless  they  are  accomplishing  the  difficult. 
But  they  are  too  few  to  drive  separately  in  most  places,  and  do 
not  drive  well  with  grouse.  It  would  have  been  no  uncommon 
thing  had  those  third-storey  birds  turned  back  in  the  air  and  gone 
off  over  the  drivers'  heads  while  the  silly  grouse  were  facing  the 
music  of  the  butts  and  dying  in  clouds  of  smoke,  for  this  refer- 
ence is  to  black  powder  days.  Your  black  game  can  think  in 
the  air,  like  the  wild  ducks,  and  they  can  also  fly  into  a  wind 
about  as  fast  as  with  one,  again  imitating  the  marvellous  and 
unexplained  power  of  some  wild  fowl,  especially  the  teal. 
Pheasants,  partridges,  and  grouse  are  creatures   of  the  wind 


344  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

more  or  less,  and  pretty  difficult  to  turn  when  the  wind  has  got 
them,  but  not  so  your  black  game ;  they  smell  danger  from  afar, 
often  only  suspect  it,  but  as  they  are  like  wild  ducks,  not  slaves 
but  kings  of  the  wind,  they  will  act  upon  their  suspicion,  because 
it  is  nothing  to  them  to  beat  up  against  a  wind,  and  besides, 
they  are  careless  how  long  they  fly.  You  cannot  drive  wild 
ducks,  nor  pigeons,  nor  black  game,  if  they  suspect  your  purpose. 
But  when  things  are  well  managed  they  give  great  sport. 
Usually  they  will  not,  like  a  grouse,  almost  knock  your  cap  off 
by  rushing  past  your  butt  too  near  to  shoot.  They  will  be  well 
up  and  look  to  be  going  easy.  There  they  deceive,  for  they 
will  be  coming  quite  as  fast  as  grouse  if  it  is  down  a  moderate 
wind,  and  if  up  wind  very  much  faster,  so  that  the  lead,  or 
allowance,  and  swing  required  is  far  more  likely  to  be  under 
than  over  done. 

The  author  has  taken  part  in  killing  40  brace  of  black  cock 
in  a  day,  with  no  more  excuse  than  that  it  was  good  for  the 
dogs ;  but  the  kind  of  shooting  in  which  anyone  may  be  proud 
of  a  good  score  is  in  driving.  Then  the  shooters  have  every 
right  to  gratification,  but  the  drivers  have  far  more.  Late  in 
the  season,  when  black  game  are  fit  to  drive,  they  sit  up  in  the 
fir  trees  to  look  out  for  the  enemy.  They  are  so  still  in  the 
dark  Scotch  pines  that  you  may  not  see  a  bird  as  you  go  to 
take  up  your  stand,  but  possibly  the  quarry  has  been  watching 
all  the  time,  and  has  observed  not  only  the  shooters  but  the 
drivers.  Then  your  black  game  will  probably  be  able  to  get 
away  by  the  flanks,  or  if  not,  like  the  wild  ducks,  they  may 
remember  that  there  is  always  room  at  the  top.  In  other  words, 
they  have  the  habits  of  game  birds  in  August  and  of  wood 
pigeons  and  wild  duck  in  October.  They  are  only  unsatis- 
factory because  the  young  birds  are  too  confiding  to  shoot,  and 
the  old  ones  too  artful  to  get  shot. 

The  Duke  of  Buccleuch  has  had  great  sport  with  black 
game  on  his  Drumlanrig  Castle  estate,  but  his  best  years  there 
were  a  long  time  ago ;  the  birds  have  been  gradually  growing 
fewer  ever  since.  His  very  best  year  was  in  1 861,  when  1586 
black  game  were  killed.     This  total  upon   an  estate  of  more 


BLACK  GAME  345 

than  150,000  acres,  although  the  largest,  is  nevertheless  very- 
small  when  compared  with  grouse  ,and  partridge  bags  over 
estates  of  one-tenth  the  size.  Apparently  the  black  game  do 
not  lend  themselves  to  great  concentration  of  breeding  birds, 
or  if  they  do,  their  fertility  does  not  seem  to  be  very  great. 
Besides,  concentration  for  shooting  is  extremely  difficult,  as  is 
proved  by  the  biggest  bag  ever  made  in  a  day.  At  Sanquhar, 
in  Dumfriesshire,  the  late  Duke  of  Buccleuch,  with  the  assist- 
ance of  eight  other  guns,  once  killed  247  black  game  in  the 
day,  of  which  over  200  were  black  cocks.  This  is  probably 
the  record  day's  bag  for  Scotland  or  anywhere  else,  but  it  is 
noteworthy  that  it  is  only  about  one-tenth  the  number  of  grouse 
that  have  been  killed  in  a  day,  and  we  may  fairly  say  that  the 
art  of  preserving  black  game  has  to  be  discovered,  as  also  has 
that  of  introducing  the  bird  into  country  new  to  it,  which  is 
only  saying  the  same  thing  in  other  words. 

The  author  has  shot  black  game  on  Dartmoor  and  in 
Caithness  and  in  most  of  the  intermediate  counties  where  they 
exist.  Everywhere  he  has  noticed  a  too  great  number  of  black 
cocks  in  proportion  to  hens,  and  as  polygamous  birds  they 
should  be  treated  like  pheasants  in  this  respect.  The  other 
point  most  noticed  is  that  not  more  than  a  quarter  of  the  grey 
hens  breed.  There  is  reason  for  this,  and  if  it  could  be  dis- 
covered, probably  black  game  might  be  reared  in  numbers 
equal  to  grouse.  The  author  merely  speculates  when  he  says 
that  the  excess  of  cocks  has  something  to  do  with  the  trouble, 
but  probably  a  worse  fault  still  is  that  the  old  birds  of  both 
sexes  are  not  shot,  and  the  young  ones  are.  There  is  no  greater 
mistake  than  to  believe  that  driving  is  an  automatic  selection 
of  the  old  birds  for  destruction.  This  is  far  from  the  case  in 
grouse  shooting  in  Scotland,  although  in  Yorkshire  it  is  different ; 
but  your  old  black  cock  and  grey  hen  carry  years  of  wisdom 
to  the  topmost  branch  of  the  Scotch  pine,  and  from  that  vantage 
post  meet  human  strategy  with  avian  tactics — and  live  to  fight 
another  year. 

It  is  a  great  pity  that  someone  does  not  take  up  the  black 
game  question  and  study  it  thoroughly.     There  are  hundreds 


346  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

of  thousands  of  acres  of  bracken,  pine,  and  rush  ground  in 
Scotland,  England,  and  Wales  that  have  no  sporting  value. 
They  are  too  high  for  pheasants  and  partridges,  and  do  not 
grow  the  right  food  for  grouse.  The  result  is  that  they  are 
useless,  but  are  nevertheless  natural  homes  for  black  game,  and 
are  so  much  appreciated  that  bachelor  black  cocks  will  inhabit 
them  for  years,  as  also  will  a  few  old  grey  hens  that  do  not 
breed,  and  the  probability  is  that  they  keep  off  all  the  breeding 
birds. 

The  grey  hen  lays  from  six  to  ten  eggs  on  the  ground. 
They  are  of  a  yellowish  shade  spotted  with  darker  colour  of 
brown  or  orange-brown.  The  playing-grounds  and  manners  of 
the  birds  in  love  and  war  are  best  described  in  Booth's  rough 
notes,  and  best  illustrated  in  Millais'  game  birds  and  shooting 
sketches.  However,  both  seem  to  suggest  that  all  the  birds  in 
the  neighbourhood  meet  on  one  playing-ground.  This  is  not 
so,  and  there  are  sometimes  and  probably  always  several  simul- 
taneous tournaments  in  very  near  proximity. 

The  black  game  has  feathered  legs  but  not  feathered  feet, 
as  has  erroneously  been  stated. 

These  birds  have  been  successfully  introduced,  and  have  bred 
for  some  years,  at  Woburn  Abbey.  Capercailzie  have  also  been 
added  to  the  birds  of  England  by  means  of  their  successful 
introduction  in  the  woods  of  Woburn,  by  the  Duke  and  Duchess 
of  Bedford. 


PIGEON  SHOOTING 

THERE  are  three  kinds  of  pigeon  shooting  in  this  country : 
that  from  traps;  that  against  the  farmer's  great  enemy 
the  wood  pigeon  {Columba palumbus) ;  and  that  of  the  wild  blue 
rock  pigeon  {Columba  livid)  along  the  cliffs.  The  stock  dove 
{Columba  mtas)  is  found  amongst  the  wood  pigeons  in  small 
proportion  to  their  numbers. 

A  few  years  ago  the  "  trap  shooting,"  as  it  was  called,  was 
very  fashionable,  and  probably  it  will  be  so  again,  when  the 
shooting  schools  have  sufficiently  shown  that  they  can  teach 
anybody  to  hit  targets  sent  overhead,  and  cannot  do  much  for 
any  form  of  shooting  that  depends  for  its  accuracy  and  quick- 
ness upon  balance  and  good  walking  powers.  Not  that  pigeon 
shooting  is  much  of  a  school  for  this  class  of  shooting  either, 
but  it  is  shooting  at  birds  going  away  from  the  gun  and  rising 
at  a  fair  range.  At  30  yards  rise  the  majority  of  those  who 
shoot  pigeons  fail  to  kill  many  more  than  half  their  birds  with 
two  barrels.  It  is  a  very  poor  shot  indeed  who  misses  as  great 
a  proportion  of  shots  at  driven  pheasants.  Yet  with  this  evi- 
dence constantly  before  the  eyes  of  everybody  who  reads  his 
sporting  papers,  it  is  very  frequently  asserted  that  driven  game 
is  much  more  difficult  to  kill  than  birds  rising  in  front  of  the 
shooter.  Besides  this,  the  pigeon  springs  from  the  ground 
slowly  compared  with  a  partridge  or  a  grouse  or  a  snipe,  and 
it  does  not  cause  the  sportsman  to  walk  after  it.  The  author 
has  on  many  occasions  seen  pigeons  dropped  within  3  yards 
of  the  trap  constantly  by  a  man  in  good  form,  but  he  never  saw 
a  full-feathered  grouse,  partridge,  or  snipe  knocked  over  as  near 

as  that  to  its  rise.     The  difficulty  of  shooting  rising  game  is  to 

347 


348  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

shoot  straight  quick  enough ;  that  of  shooting  driven  game  is 
to  wait  long  enough  and  shoot  straight.  For  the  first,  there  is 
an  individual  limit  for  each  of  us,  which  no  amount  of  practice 
seems  to  improve.  There  is,  for  the  second,  no  limit  to  the 
cultivation  of  patience. 

But  this  only  applies  to  the  single  shot  of  each  kind.  The 
difficulty  of  driving  is  not  in  the  shot,  but  in  the  shots.  There 
is  no  limit  to  the  number  of  possible  chances,  and  for  this 
reason  one  cannot  exercise  patience  and  let  the  game  get 
very  near,  lest  other  chances  should  be  lost.  The  real  diffi- 
culty, then,  in  shooting  driven  game  well  is  to  shoot  the 
far-off  birds  as  soon  as  the  gun  will  kill  them,  in  order  to 
change  guns  quickly  and  be  ready  again. 

In  pigeon  shooting  the  double  rise  is  the  most  difficult. 
Few  kill  half  their  birds  at  25  yards  rise,  and  still 
folk  will  talk  of  the  difficulty  of  driven  game  as  compared  with 
flushed  game.  The  author  does  not  believe  there  is  any 
pigeon  shooter  who  can,  even  occasionally,  kill  a  dozen  blue 
rocks  in  double  rises  at  30  yards.  He  knows  there  are 
plenty  of  people  who  can  frequently  kill  a  dozen  grouse, 
pheasants,  and  partridges  driven  overhead.  And  yet  a  rising 
blue  rock  is  not  "  in  it "  with  the  spring  of  an  October  grouse, 
partridge,  or  snipe  for  quickness.  A  ten-year-old  boy  has  been 
coached  at  the  shooting  school  to  kill  driven  game  well,  but 
nobody  ever  saw  or  will  see  a  ten-year-old  walk  after  October 
grouse  and  kill  them  well.  An  old  man  of  eighty  has  made 
quite  as  good  work  as  the  rising  generation  at  driven  game, 
but  not  at  shooting  over  dogs. 

Still,  pigeon  shooting  from  traps  is  only  now  regarded  as 
a  test  of  skill  by  a  very  small  and  decreasing  minority,  and 
the  reason  is  that  the  coming  game  has  been  invested  with  a 
difficulty  that  does  not  properly  belong  to  it,  and  one  that 
will  grow  less  each  year  as  the  prejudice  against  going  to 
school  to  learn  skill  with  the  gun  decreases.  At  present  it 
is  not  the  townsman  who  finds  driven  game  difficult,  but  the 
countryman  who  has  learnt  his  shooting  on  game,  but  only  a 
little  of  it,  and  who  is  "  above  "  going  to  school  again. 


PIGEON  SHOOTING  349 

The  rules  for  pigeon  shooting  can  always  be  had  from 
the  Secretary  of  the  Gun  Club,  Notting  Hill ;  they  are  slightly 
changed  occasionally,  and  therefore  it  is  not  wise  to  repeat  them 
here.  There  are  five  traps,  each  of  which  is  supplied  with  a 
pigeon,  and  either  of  these  birds  is  released  for  the  man  at  the 
mark  to  shoot  at  when  he  calls  "  Pull."  The  operation  of  the 
traps  is  done  by  hand,  but  a  hand  that  does  not  know  which 
trap  is  to  be  opened. 

Ordinary  game  weapons  are  of  no  use  in  these  competitive 
pigeon  matches.  Guns  are  used  of  above  7  lbs.,  that  will 
absorb  the  recoil  of  large  charges  of  powder  and  shot,  the 
latter  of  which  is  limited  to  i-J  oz.  The  usual  plan  is  to 
use  small-sized  shot,  so  that  there  shall  be  many  of  them 
in  this  weight  of  load,  and  to  use  enough  powder  to 
cause  the  light  pellet  to  strike  with  as  much  energy  as 
pellets  a  size  larger  from  a  game  gun  and  charge  of  powder. 
Pigeon  weapons  used  always  to  be  chambered  for  3  inch 
cartridges,  but  whether  this  will  continue,  now  that  concen- 
trated powders  have  come  in  and  are  much  used  for  pigeons, 
is  doubtful. 

Some  very  wonderful  scores  have  been  made  in  America  by 
professional  pigeon  shots.  Probably  nothing  is  more  deceptive 
than  the  scoring  of  long  runs  at  pigeons,  which  may  be  the 
best  blue  rocks  or  very  blundering  slow-rising  fowl.  In  America 
they  have  not  had  a  very  good  class  of  pigeons,  and  their  records 
are  consequently  not  fairly  comparable  with  those  made  in 
England  at  best  blue  rocks.  The  American  birds  are  of  the 
English  race,  but  not  of  the  blue  rock  variety.  The  latter  are  a 
domesticated  breed  of  the  wild  rock  pigeons  of  the  coast  caves, 
where  its  pursuit  is  vastly  more  difficult  than  shooting  its 
cousins  from  a  trap. 

The  records  of  kills  of  even  best  blue  rocks  do  not  tell  us 
very  much  of  the  form  of  the  men  who  made  them.  Some 
apparently  very  wonderful  shooting  was  done  half  a  century 
ago,  at  40  yards  rise.  Later,  guns  were  reduced  in  bore, 
and  in  weight  and  load ;  boundaries  were  shortened,  and 
12   bore    charges   of    nitro    powders    were   improved,   so   that 


350  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

conditions  have  varied  from  time  to  time  so  much  that  nobody 
can  say  with  any  certainty  who  were  the  best  pigeon  shots  or 
at  what  period  they  lived.  Probably  Horatio  Ross  got  out  of 
a  gun  as  great  a  proportion  of  its  accuracy  and  power  as  any 
man  who  ever  lived,  and  although  the  numbers  of  gunners  who 
can  shoot  driven  game  well  has  greatly  increased,  the  number 
who  can  shoot  pigeons  even  moderately  well  has  very  much 
declined  in  England.  Our  countrymen  now  lose  the  Grand 
Prix  de  Monte  Carlo  with  nearly  as  great  certainty  as  formerly 
they  won  it  This  does  not  appear  to  be  because  the  com- 
petition is  more  severe  than  it  was,  for  the  author  knows  some 
winners  of  the  Grand  Prix  whom  he  could  not  call  first-rate  shots. 
One  of  the  writer's  first  pigeon  shooting  matches  was  at  a 
private  house  party  at  Vaynol  Park.  His  experience  there 
serves  to  illustrate  the  differences  between  good  blue  rocks 
and  what  are  usually  called  "  owls " ;  this  term  means  any 
bird  either  bigger  or  with  more  white  in  it  than  a  blue  rock 
has,  also  it  serves  to  show  that  an  occasional  "  owl "  is  a  good 
test  of  ready  marksmanship.  The  writer  had  won  a  single 
stake,  and  only  required  one  more  bird  out  of  the  double  rise 
stake  to  win  that  too.  It  was  getting  dusk,  and  the  birds  had 
been  very  smart.  When  the  traps  fell,  two  white  ones  came 
out  and  circled  round  to  right  and  left  as  slowly  as  they  could. 
Of  course  the  shooter  thought  it  an  obviously  soft  thing  to 
get  them  both;  but  "certainties"  in  shooting  have  a  way  of 
following  the  example  of  racing  precedents.  He  missed  both 
quite  easily,  and  had  to  pay  instead  of  to  receive — except  in 
"  chaff" 

It  might  be  thought  that  something  should  be  said  on  the 
ethics  of  pigeon  shooting,  since  the  exigencies  of  polo  have 
abolished  it  at  Hurlingham,  and  the  screeching  brigade  have 
rendered  this  as  a  moral  victory  in  the  press. 

The  author  has  bred  pigeons  in  Lincolnshire  dovecotes  for 
this  sport,  and  is  not  a  bit  ashamed  of  the  fact.  Moreover,  as 
Edward  VII.  was  at  that  time  shooting  them,  the  company  is 
good  enough. 


PIGEON  SHOOTING^  351 

The  Wild  Rock  Pigeon 

This  bird  generally  has  to  be  shot  from  a  boat,  and  usually 
on  a  sea  not  as  steady  as  it  might  be.  The  pigeons  live  in  the 
cliff  caves,  and  disturbance  causes  them  to  dash  out  with  a 
speed  and  a  twist  that  is  highly  productive  of  sport  that  is 
not  very  fatal  to  the  birds. 

It  is  clear  that  there  are  limits  to  the  appreciation  of 
difficulty  in  shooting,  otherwise  these  cave  rock  pigeons  would 
attract  all  those  shooters  who  can  never  get  pheasants  high 
enough  or  fast  enough  for  them.  But  they  do  not.  There  is 
certainly  a  chance  of  mingling  the  pleasures  of  sport  with  the 
pains  of  sea-sickness,  and  so  an  excuse  of  a  kind  for  leaving 
the  wild  rock  pigeon  severely  alone. 

The  Wood  Pigeon 

In  summer  these  birds  are  widely  distributed  through 
nearly  every  wood  in  the  country,  and  the  majority  of  the  large 
flocks  we  see  in  the  winter  come  from  abroad.  Summer  gives 
shooting  to  anyone  who  has  patience  to  wait  for  a  very 
occasional  shot,  but  in  winter  great  sport  is  to  be  had  wherever 
the  big  flocks  are  found.  These  flocks  often  number  many 
thousands  of  individuals,  and  do  not  visit  the  same  spots  every 
year.  The  attraction  is  always  food :  acorns,  clover-fields,  and 
turnip-fields  are  most  attractive.  If  left  alone,  the  pigeons 
would  soon  clear  a  big  field  of  every  blade  of  clover  or  of  every 
turnip  leaf  In  ordinary  weather  they  are  very  wild  indeed, 
and  must  be  attracted  to  the  hidden  shooter  with  decoys  of 
kinds.  But  in  hard  frost,  when  there  is  some  frost  fog  in  the 
air,  through  which  the  birds  look  as  big  as  barndoor  fowls  with 
their  puffed-out  feathers,  they  are  almost  careless  of  man  or  gun. 
At  least,  they  are  so  occasionally,  and  in  such  circumstances  the 
author  has  shot  lots  of  them  from  the  roadside  hedge  without 
any  concealment,  but  by  merely  walking  along  and  shooting 
those  which  rose  nearest  to  the  fence.  Another  way  of  shoot- 
ing them  is  to  wait  for  them  to  come  in  to  roost.     The  latter 


352  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

gives  a  few  very  sporting  shots,  but  neither  plan  is  likely  to  give 
great  sport,  and  the  best  is  undoubtedly  to  be  had  only  by  the 
double  means  of  the  use  of  decoys  and  a  constant  and  simul- 
taneous disturbance  of  the  pigeons  in  all  the  coverts  of  a 
neighbourhood  by  a  number  of  guns. 

In  this  way  the  birds  are  kept  upon  the  move  all  the  time, 
they  are  attracted  to  your  hide  by  your  decoys  or  dummy 
pigeons,  and  many  times  over  lOO  and  sometimes  over  200 
pigeons  have  in  this  way  been  killed  in  one  day  by  a  single 
gun.  The  shooting  is  all  the  harder  because  of  the  necessity 
of  shooting  from  a  shelter,  except  in  snow-time,  when  occasion- 
ally a  white  nightshirt  is  a  good  substitute  for  any  hide,  and 
the  gunner  may  stand  out  in  the  open  unobserved  by  the  birds. 
Very  tall  bamboo  rods  are  useful  to  fix  up  dummy  or  stuffed 
wood  pigeons,  head  to  the  wind,  on  the  tallest  branches  of  the 
trees  near  by  the  sportsman's  hide.  Others  can  be  placed  upon 
the  ground  to  give  additional  confidence  to  the  coming  birds. 
Even  better  results  can  be  obtained  by  the  use  of  one  or  two 
live  decoys  on  the  ground  amongst  the  dummy  or  stuffed  birds. 

A  live  decoy  is  best  used  on  the  principle  of  the  "  play  bird  " 
of  the  bird-catching  fraternity.  He  is  made  to  rise  from  the 
ground  occasionally,  so  that  he  flaps  his  wings  and  settles  again. 
This  is  done  by  the  pulling  of  a  string  which  is  fastened  to  the 
pigeon  and  works  over  a  lever.  Anything  in  the  shape  of  a 
couple  of  sticks  placed  some  yards  apart,  with  the  string  fastened 
to  the  farther  from  the  shooter  and  running  loosely  over  the 
top  of  the  nearer,  will  answer  the  purpose  of  hoisting  up  the 
pigeon  4  feet  or  a  yard.  In  tying  it  to  the  running  string 
between  the  two  sticks,  it  is  necessary  so  to  arrange  as  not 
to  impede  the  wing  movement  and  not  to  turn  over  the  bird 
in  flipping  it  upwards.  It  is  not  the  rise  that  must  be  looked 
to  for  attracting  wild  ones,  but  the  natural  way  the  bird 
settles  after  it  has  been  flipped  into  the  air.  This  will  be  seen 
much  farther  away  than  the  dummies  on  the  ground,  or  even 
those  in  the  trees,  but  it  is  not  so  much  because  of  the  distance 
whence  it  is  seen  as  because  of  the  confidence  it  begets  that 
it  is  the  best  form  of  decoy.     In    this  sport  the  quicker  one 


PIGEON  SHOOTING  353 

shoots  the  better,  because  there  are  always  more  birds  coming, 
and  if  you  wait  they  may  get  near  enough  to  hear  the  shot,  or 
even  to  see  the  smoke,  after  either  of  which  those  particular 
birds  are  lost  for  the  day.  The  best  position  for  a  hide  is  in  the 
fence  of  a  covert,  near  to  not  very  tall  trees  on  which  dummies 
can  be  placed,  and  where  the  adjoining  field  affords  food — for 
choice,  a  turnip  or  a  clover  field. 

The  shooting  at  settling  pigeons  as  they  steady  themselves 
is  child's  play,  but  the  ambitious  gunner  need  not  wait  for  this, 
and  will  have  plenty  of  opportunities  of  being  dissatisfied  with 
his  own  skill.  If  there  should  be  big  hawks  about,  as  described 
by  Lord  Walsingham  of  one  of  his  famous  shoots,  the  gunner 
is  likely  to  realise  that  even  wood  pigeons  can  emulate  the 
twisting  of  the  snipe  and  the  speed  of  a  down-wind  grouse,  and 
do  it  all  at  one  time. 

It  may  be  asked  whether  wooden  dummies  are  likely  to 
take  in  the  live  birds.  There  is  no  doubt  about  that,  if  they 
are  set  head  to  wind,  as  the  real  thing  always  sets  himself. 
Moreover,  it  has  occurred  that  a  peregrine  has  so  much  mistaken 
the  nature  of  these  imitations  as  on  one  occasion  to  dash  at 
one  of  them,  hurl  it  yards  away,  and  suffer  himself  to  become 
a  gunner's  substitute  for  the  tardy  quarry,  and  so  to  gaze  out 
of  a  glass  case  ever  after  as  a  warning  to  rash  and  greedy 
humanity. 

The  author  believes  that  Mr.  Mason  of  Eynsham  Hall,  who 
now  has  Drumour  in  Perthshire,  holds  the  record  for  a  day's 
wood  pigeon  shooting.  He  is  not  very  certain  of  the  score, 
but  believes  it  was  253  birds,  if  memory  is  reliable. 

With  all  the  records  of  trap  shooting  before  him,  the  author 
cannot  make  up  his  mind  to  occupy  space  with  them ;  for,  as 
already  said,  they  are  not  comparable  amongst  themselves. 


23 


DEER  IN  SCOTLAND 

THE  kind  of  rifle  best  suited  for  red  deer  in  Scotland  is  a 
double  .303,  .256,  or  .275.  These  weapons  with  a  hollow- 
fronted  or  a  soft-nosed  bullet  can  be  made  to  expend  all  the 
impact  energy  within  the  body  of  a  deer,  whereas  if  hard  the 
bullets  would  pierce  a  stag  from  end  to  end  and  possibly  do 
him  no  immediate  damage.  Magazine  single  rifles  would  be 
almost  as  effective  if  they  were  not  noisy  in  loading,  and  single 
loaders  are  slow,  but  almost  as  extremely  moderate  in  price 
as  the  latter.  The  sporting  range  for  a  stag  before  the 
express  rifles  was  from  40  to  100  yards.  The  express  in- 
creased the  range  at  which  a  true  sportsman  would  risk  a  shot 
up  to  150  yards,  and  the  high  velocity  rifles  named  above 
are  doubtless  as  deadly  at  250  yards  as  the  Henry  rifle 
was  at  100  yards.  The  flat  trajectory  of  a  rifle  giving  an  initial 
velocity  of  from  2000  to  2400  feet  per  second  is  of  even  more 
importance  than  the  latter's  greater  energy  of  impact,  for  deer 
are  very  easily  killed  if  hit  in  the  chest  cavity  by  an  expanding 
bullet,  as  those  are  which  are  soft-nosed  or  hollow-pointed.  The 
latter  is  much  the  better  principle  for  deer,  because  expansion 
is  then  caused  as  much  by  striking  the  soft  flesh  or  the  skin 
as  it  is  by  striking  a  bone.  The  cause  of  the  expansion  in  the 
latter  case  is  hydraulic  pressure,  increased  with  the  velocity 
of  the  bullet,  through  the  87  per  cent,  of  water  of  the  deer's 
flesh. 

Deer  forests  vary  in  value  even  more  than  they  do  in 
rentals.  Many  of  them  are  let  from  year  to  year  with  "  limits  " 
of  stags  set  by  agreement.  When,  as  often  happens,  these 
limits    are  so  high   that   the  forests  cannot  produce  as  many 

354- 


A   SCOTTISH    DKHR    }iKAl)   OF    l.M^UAI.I.V    HKAVV    BEAM- 
A    THIKTKKN"    POIXTKR 


A    FIXK    WTl.DLV    T\1'1CAL    MXK    I'UlXT    >exnTIsH    HEAD   OK   :-!->    INCH    SPAN 


DEER  IN  SCOTLAND  355 

good  deer,  the  yearly  tenants  possibly  shoot  bad  stags,  and 
make  up  their  number  in  this  way.  These  bad  stags  are 
mostly  young  beasts  which  ought  to  come  in  for  the  rifle  of 
some  future  tenant.  So  are  prospects  ruined  by  the  "  limits " 
that  ought  to  improve  them.  Forests  of  this  character  are 
well  known,  and  only  find  tenants  amongst  the  uninitiated, 
who  are  too  proud  or  too  busy  to  ask  for  information. 

On  the  other  hand,  where  forests  are  let  on  lease  or  kept 
in  the  hands  of  proprietors,  a  totally  opposite  system  of 
"nursing"  sometimes  goes  farther  than  sporting  sentiment 
approves.  At  one  time,  deer  wire  was  much  resorted  to  in 
order  to  keep  the  fat  winter-fed  stags  at  home.  But  a  park 
stag  has  no  sporting  value,  and  so  the  wire  has  to  a  great 
extent  been  abandoned.  But  feeding  by  hand  is  increasing. 
The  fact  is  that  there  are  more  deer  than  the  forests  will 
support  both  in  winter  and  summer,  and  deer  that  are  fed  get 
as  tame  as  calves  in  the  winter.  In  the  autumn  the  shooter 
will  not  be  able  to  detect  this  result  of  hand  feeding,  but  he 
is  very  likely  to  hear  of  it,  or  even  to  see  pictures  taken  of  the 
wild  deer  herd  playing  in  the  presence  of  the  camera.  This 
is  calculated  to  lower  the  values  of  deer  forests,  as  the  idea 
of  the  red  deer's  wildness  is  reduced. 

Much  more  might  be  done  than  has  been  attempted  by 
introducing  fresh  blood  from  the  Caucasus,  where  the  stags  are 
as  big  as  wapiti,  and  in  the  Carpathians  cross  freely  with  the 
Western  sort  to  be  found  in  Scotland.  The  two  varieties  meet 
naturally  in  the  Carpathian  Mountains.  The  wapiti  second 
crosses  are  not  considered  successful.  They  are  wapiti  without 
the  size,  and  red  deer  without  the  antlers.  But  some  of  the 
first  crosses  have  been  fine  beasts.  Crossing  is  rather  out  of 
favour  in  Scotland,  because  park  deer  were  used  for  the 
purpose,  and  park  deer  are  supposed  to  introduce  domestic 
habits  and  appearance.  But  in  the  wild  high  altitudes  of  the 
Caucasus  is  a  race  of  deer  as  wild,  as  hardy,  and  twice  as  big 
as  those  of  Scotland,  and  also  they  have  splendid  heads,  out 
of  all  proportion  more  massive  than  the  Scotch  stags'  heads. 

His    Majesty   the    King   prefers    deer    driving   to   stalking. 


356  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

Deer  stalking  is  a  young  man's  sport,  except  where  the  hills 
and  hill  paths  enable  deer  ponies  to  go  almost  anywhere. 
But  stalking,  and  not  driving,  is  the  sport  of  the  Highlands, 
probably  as  much  because  driving  deer  is  helping  one's 
neighbours  as  for  any  other  reason.  The  paintings  of  deer 
drives  that  one  still  sees  many  engravings  of  are  for  the  most 
part  fancy  affairs.  Deer  generally  move  slowly,  and  not  like 
race-horses.  In  going  through  a  pass  they  usually  travel  at 
a  pace  they  intend  to  keep  up  for  five  or  ten  miles.  They  may 
rush  sometimes,  but  the  author  believes  that  this  artistic  idea 
had  its  origin  in  the  time  of  the  deerhound.  The  Scotch 
manner  of  finding  deer  is  by  "spying"  with  the  telescope. 
The  Continental  manner  is  by  listening  for  the  "  roar,"  or 
love  challenge,  of  the  stags  in  the  deep  woodlands  where 
"spying"  would  be  impossible.  Consequently,  the  woodland 
deer  of  the  Continent  is  shot  in  the  rutting  season,  unless  he 
is  driven.  In  Scotland,  leases  make  the  season  terminate  by 
the  end  of  the  first  or  second  week  in  October. 

The  sight  of  deer  is  remarkably  sharp,  but  they  trust 
much  more  to  their  olfactory  powers  for  protection,  and  they 
generally  take  a  couch  where  their  eyes  prote  .t  them  from  the 
down-wind  enemy  and  their  noses  from  the  up-wind  approach 
of  a  foe.  Then  they  prefer  to  travel  up  wind.  A  novice  may 
succeed  as  well  as  an  old  hand  if  he  can  shoot  and  judge 
distances,  because  as  a  novice  he  will  never  try  to  stalk  a  stag 
for  ^himself.  That  higher  sportsmanship  is  to  be  learnt  with 
years,  but  at  the  beginning  the  professional  stalker  is  as 
necessary  as  the  rifle  itself.  To  protect  him,  it  has  been  said 
that  the  deer  trusts  most  of  all  to  his  sense  of  smell,  next  to 
that  of  sight,  and  lastly  to  that  of  hearing.  Probably  at  the 
same  stalk  it  is  not  very  uncommon  to  observe  both  sight  and 
hearing  mislead  the  stag  into  danger,  and  smell  to  put  him 
right.  The  author  has  fired  at  and  missed  a  stag,  which 
started  away  from  the  sound,  saw  the  splash  of  the  bullet 
beyond  him,  and,  trusting  his  sight  before  his  hearing,  rushed 
back  towards  the  shooter;  then  he  has  got  the  scent  of  the 
latter,  and  thus  known  all  about  the  situation  in  an  instant. 


DEER  IN  SCOTLAND  357 

The  echo  may  often  confuse  stags,  and  so  make  them  mistrust 
their  own  sense  of  hearing.  They  will  often  apparently  gaze 
at  a  man  in  full  view  of  them  and  appear  not  to  see  him  unless 
he  moves.  The  very  slightest  movement  is  enough.  But 
although  the  wind  in  the  corries  often  plays  curious  tricks 
in  warning  a  stag  that  is  apparently  safely  up  wind  of  the 
stalker,  it  is  doubtful  whether  it  ever  plays  tricks  against  the 
stag  and  sends  him  back  into  the  arms  of  the  stalker,  as  a 
splash  from  a  ball  in  the  water  does  sometimes. 

It  may  be  remarked  that  since  the  Government  have  cut 
down  the  .303  to  25  inches,  instead  of  its  previous  30  inches, 
it  makes  a  very  fair  stalking  rifle,  although  it  is  no  longer  the 
arm  of  precision  it  was  at  long  range.  In  order  to  maintain 
the  velocity,  they  have  been  obliged  to  cause  more  pressure 
in  the  chamber  by  altering  the  shape  of  the  "  lead,"  or  leading 
passage  for  the  bullet,  from  the  chamber  to  the  bore  of  the 
rifling.  If,  however,  they  have  been  able  to  do  this  by  this 
means,  what  could  they  not  have  done  by  applying  the  same 
improvement  to  the  long  barrel !  Only  in  the  last  year  before 
its  condemnation,  the  latter  had  been  discovered  to  be  the 
best  barrel  in  the  world  when  properly  loaded.  But  it 
required  a  bigger  charge  than  the  Government  ever  gave  to 
it.  Messrs.  Kynoch  claim  a  great  improvement  for  this  rifle 
by  the  discovery  of  their  axite  powder,  and  with  all  these 
improvements  there  seems  now  to  be  no  reason  why  the 
sportsman  in  ordering  new  rifles  should  be  satisfied  with  any 
less  flat  trajectory  than  that  given  by  the  Mannlicher  with 
its  initial  2350  foot-seconds  velocity.  The  author  will  not 
discuss  trajectories  in  this  work,  because  he  has  reason  to 
question  the  accuracy  of  the  text-books,  including  the  last 
issued  by  the  Government ;  and  it  would  be  clearly  unwise 
to  challenge  criticism  here,  without  having  the  space  to  enter 
fully  into  the  matter. 


BIG  GAME 

AS  we  have  nothing  bigger  than  a  red  deer  in  a  state  of 
nature,  all  the  big  game  has  to  be  looked  for  abroad. 
There  is  really  no  country  which  can  easily  and  quickly  be 
reached  where  big  game  is  to  be  shot.  Somaliland  and  British 
East  Africa  probably  afford  the  best  chances  for  African  species, 
Wyoming  the  best  for  wapiti  in  the  United  States.  India 
and  the  adjoining  countries  is  now,  as  it  always  has  been,  the 
greatest  big -game  shooting  arena  in  the  world.  It  might 
have  been  challenged  by  South  Africa  in  the  days  of  Gordon 
Gumming,  but  that  district  was  soon  shot  out  by  the  Boers. 
However,  South  Africa  at  that  time  will  for  ever  remain  a 
lesson  to  game  preservers.  It  swarmed  with  an  enormous 
variety  of  big  game,  against  the  increase  of  which  the  un- 
molested lions  and  other  beasts  of  prey  were  powerless  for 
harm.  They  had  no  effect  whatever  in  restricting  the  increase 
of  buffalo,  antelopes,  and  zebra.  Yet  the  fashion  inclines  to 
believe  that  a  few  peregrine  falcons  would  seriously  damage  the 
stocks  of  grouse  in  Scotland  and  Yorkshire.  Probably,  if  the 
truth  were  known,  there  were  as  many  grouse  in  Scotland  before 
anyone  ever  thought  of  killing  vermin  as  there  are  now.  It  is 
very  often  forgotten  that  vermin  eat  vermin  as  well  as  other 
creatures. 

The  question  of  rifles  for  big  game  would  occupy  more  space 
than  the  whole  of  these  pages  to  treat  of  it  adequately.  Briefly, 
it  may  be  said  that  for  each  animal  there  is  a  best  rifle,  and  for 
hardly  any  two  species  is  the  same  weapon  the  best.  A  com- 
promise is  effected  by  using  different  bullets  for  the  same  rifle, 
and  the  principle  on  which  to  choose  weapons  is  to  go  for  a 


BIG  GAME  359 

thoroughly  effective  weapon  for  the  most  important  species  to 
be  hunted,  and  by  altering  the  bullet  make  it  do  moderately 
well  for  other  less  important  beasts.  In  hunting  for  elephants 
and  buffalo,  it  is  necessary  to  be  able  to  stop  a  charging  beast 
with  a  temple  hit.  Both  the  elephant  and  the  buffalo  of  Africa 
are  particularly  hard  to  bring  down  with  a  forehead  shot,  or  they 
were  before  the  days  of  high  velocity  rifles  of  from  .500  to  .600 
bore.  Those  of  .303  bore  and  less  are  not  to  be  trusted  unless 
they  smash  the  brain,  and  themselves  smash  up  in  the  brain, 
and  not  before  or  after  piercing  it.  A  No.  6  shot  pellet  is  about 
one  five-thousandth  the  weight  of  a  partridge,  and  has  no  im- 
mediate effect  on  the  bird  unless  it  enters  a  vital  spot.  The 
215  grain  bullet  of  the  .303  weighs  about  one  two  hundred- 
thousandth  the  weight  of  an  elephant,  and  yet  there  have  been 
those  who  advise  the  use  of  such  bullets  for  these  beasts.  It 
appears  to  the  author,  who  has  never  shot  an  elephant,  but  has 
listened  to  all  views  of  those  who  have  shot  them,  that  the  small- 
bore men  trust  a  great  deal  to  the  natural  timidity  of  the  big 
beasts,  and  believe  that  they  will  not  charge  even  if  they  are 
wounded.  Of  course  elephants  differ  in  temper  at  various 
times  more  than  most  animals,  and  a  charging  African  elephant 
at  close  quarters  is  possible,  to  say  the  least. 

The  big  bore  solid  bullet  has  been  displaced  to  a  great 
extent  by  high  velocity  bullets  of  less  weight  and  diameter  but 
more  length.  These  bullets  are  trusted  to  pierce  farther  than 
the  old  4  bore  bullet,  and  to  give  as  severe  a  shock.  The  object 
is  to  do  as  much  damage  within  the  head  as  possible,  and  not 
merely  to  pierce  it.  Expanding  bullets  are  not  to  be  trusted 
for  this  business,  because  the  bone  of  an  elephant's  head  from 
the  frontal  shot  makes  all  bullets  tend  to  flatten  up  too  much, 
unless  they  are  very  hard.  In  other  words,  for  these  hard- 
skinned,  hard-boned  animals  the  biggest  bullet  makes  the 
biggest  hole,  and  any  expanding  of  the  bullet  tends  to  break 
it  up  and  prevent  an  entry  into  the  vitals.  For  soft-skinned 
animals  it  is  very  different.  An  expanding  bullet  is  in  every 
way  preferable  to  a  hard  bullet,  whether  from  big  or  small  bore. 
The  latter  has  a  tendency  to  go  through  the  animal  and  expend 


36o  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

its  energy  on  the  other  side,  and  the  former  tends  to  flatten  out 
and  smash  up  large  portions  of  the  internal  organs  and  to  remain 
in  them. 

But  every  prospective  big-game  hunter  will  be  wise  to  go  to 
some  of  those  who  make  it  a  business  and  a  specialty  to  fit 
out  expeditions,  and  there  he  will  not  only  hear  the  latest 
views  of  those  who  have  returned  from  expeditions,  but  see 
the  very  latest  designs  for  increasing  the  effectiveness  of  rifles. 
If  the  author  were  going  for  big  game,  and  especially  dangerous 
game,  the  first  persons  he  would  consult  are  Mr.  Henry  Holland 
(whose  opportunities  of  hearing  the  latest  views  of  sportsmen 
returned  from  expeditions  are  unique),  Messrs.  Rigby,  Purdey, 
Westley  Richards,  and  Gibbs  of  Bristol,  for  the  last  new  thing, 
because  rifles  cannot  be  said  to  have  reached  finality,  and  are 
being  evolved  and  improved  every  day,  as  is  also  the  powder  to 
be  used  with  them. 

There  is  at  present  considerable  difference  of  opinion  as  to 
whether  .450  high  velocity  rifles  are  equal  to  the  task  of  dropping 
an  African  elephant  by  a  frontal  shot. 

Mr.  Naumann  believes  that  they  are  equal  to  anything,  and 
he  has  had  experience ;  but  then  he  may  have  been  lucky  in  not 
having  his  bullet  deflected  from  the  brain  by  the  mass  of  bone 
it  has  to  break  through.  A  great  deal  would  certainly  depend 
upon  the  angle  at  which  the  bullet  first  struck  the  bone.  Steel 
cores  to  the  bullets  prevent  expanding  or  breaking  up  of  that 
part  of  the  bullet,  but  not  of  the  leaden  covering,  and  this  ex- 
pansion necessarily  would  greatly  retard  the  speed  and  distance 
of  penetration. 


A  VARIED  BAG 

Seal  Shooting 

THERE  was  some  talk  of  a  sportsman's  badge  being  earned 
by  the  person  who  had  killed  a  seal,  a  stag,  and  a  golden 
eagle.  The  former  is  very  easy  to  kill,  but  very  difficult  to 
bag.  It  must  be  shot  absolutely  dead  instantaneously,  or  it 
struggles  into  the  water  and  there  sinks.  It  has  to  be  caught 
when  basking  on  the  rocks  or  sands,  and  this  generally  means 
shooting  from  a  boat  in  a  sea  which  will  not  be  still,  so  that  the 
chances  of  a  brain  shot  are  not  great.  To  shoot  seals  when 
they  come  up  to  have  a  look  at  a  passing  boat  is  to  wound  them 
generally,  but  if  they  are  killed  they  sink.  Possibly  the  only 
advantage  of  shooting  seals  is  to  save  some  fish.  The  salmon 
waiting  to  run  up  rivers  are  made  to  suffer  greatly  very  often. 
The  seal  of  our  coasts  is  not  the  fur  seal,  and  has  little  value 
when  shot. 

Capercailzie 

This  is  the  finest  game  bird  we  have,  unless  it  be  considered 
that  the  lately  introduced  wild  turkeys  are  finer ;  both  are  the 
offspring  of  imported  birds,  for  the  turkeys  never  were  British 
birds,  and  the  capercailzie  after  extinction  were  re-introduced 
in  the  Taymouth  Castle  district  by  the  then  Earl  of  Breadalbane. 

The  birds  do  not  grow  in  Scotland  to  nearly  the  size  of  those 
of  the  Continent,  and  fine  as  they  are  they  give  but  little  sport, 
and  are  thought  to  be  objectionable  in  many  ways.  One  of 
these  is  said  to  be  that  they  eat  the  leaders  of  the  Scotch  pine 
and  so  ruin  the  trees ;  but  it  is  difficult  to  believe  this  to  be 
correct,  for  the  leaders  of  the  pines  could  hardly  be  reached 

361 


362  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

from  any  other  branch  but  its  own,  and  this  would  prove  a  very 
insecure  seat  for  so  heavy  a  bird.  However,  capercailzie  are 
increasing  in  Scotland,  in  spite  of  the  determination  of  many 
woodmen  to  keep  them  down.  That  they  form  a  very  pretty 
addition  to  a  day's  bag,  and  create  the  excitement  that  variety 
usually  affords,  is  true  enough.  There  is  no  place  equal  to  some 
of  the  less  elevated  estates  in  Perthshire  for  variety  of  bag. 
There  capercailzie,  roe  deer,  brown  hares,  rabbits,  duck,  teal, 
blackcock,  pheasants,  grouse,  partridges,  woodcock,  two  sorts 
of  snipe,  and  wood  pigeons,  as  well  as  a  variety  of  the  scarcer 
kinds  of  duck,  may  all  be  killed  in  one  day.  But  it  is  difficult 
to  beat  for  the  majority  of  these  varieties  of  game  in  any  one 
way  ;  for  instance,  capercailzie  and  black  game  seem  to  require 
special  methods  of  beating  covers  for  them,  and  then  they  are 
not  both  likely  to  take  the  same  course,  as  the  caper  can  make 
but  little  headway  up  hill  and  the  black  game  can.  Where 
capercailzie  are  numerous  they  are  very  interesting  to  drive  and 
shoot,  for  it  is  not  easy  to  do  either  properly.  But  they  are 
usually  too  scarce  for  special  days  in  October,  and  in  August 
they  give  no  sport  in  their  half-fledged  condition.  Seventy  of 
these  birds  have  been  killed  in  driving  in  one  day  near  Dunkeld. 
The  hens  lay  from  6  to  13  eggs.  The  full-grown  cock-of- 
the-woods  weighs  from  9  to  1 3  lbs.  in  Scotland,  but  is  bigger 
in  Scandinavia.  The  hen  lays  late  in  May,  and  the  birds  are 
polygamous.  Linnaeus  gave  the  scientific  name  Tetrao  urogallus 
to  the  cock-of-the-woods,  which  is  known  in  Gaelic  as  Capult- 
coille.  He  is  Tiwr  to  the  Norwegian,  and  Tjader  to  the  Swede ; 
Glouhar  to  the  Russian,  and  Auerhahn  to  the  German.  These 
birds  became  extinct  in  Ireland  about  1760  and  in  Scotland 
about  1780,  and  were  not  re-introduced  successfully  until  1837, 
although  repeated  attempts  had  been  made. 

The  Quail 

is  rarely  a  winter  resident  in  England  or  Ireland,  but  was  so 
much  more  frequently  in  the  middle  of  last  century.  Then, 
too,  large  numbers  used  to  come  to  this  country  in  May  to  breed 


A  VARIED  BAG  363 

here.  They  were  supposed  to  leave  in  September,  but  the 
author  believes  that  the  majority  left  before  the  shooting 
season,  as  he  has  often  found  broods  in  the  sixties  which 
disappeared  before  the  opening  of  partridge  shooting. 

They  cannot  be  forced,  or  even  encouraged,  to  migrate  to  this 
country.  Instinct  once  lost  cannot  be  re-created  by  any  act  of 
ours.  The  King  tried  turning  out  a  lot  of  quail  at  Sandring- 
ham,  where  they  bred,  but  being  spared  they  migrated,  and  not 
one  of  them  came  back.  Still,  although  His  Majesty  is  not 
likely  to  try  this  experiment  again,  it  seems  to  the  author  to 
have  proved  the  possibility  of  success,  provided  ambition  does 
not  soar  too  high.  It  shows  that  if  we  had  quail  leagues  in  the 
various  counties,  we  might  greatly  add  to  our  sport  by  buying 
up  the  imported  live  quail  and  releasing  them.  If  we  could  get 
Hungarian  partridges  at  ninepence  or  a  shilling  each,  who  would 
not  buy  them  ?  The  quail  is  quite  as  fertile  of  sport  and  breeds 
as  freely,  and  after  being  turned  down  in  the  spring  wanders  no 
more  before  breeding  than  the  partridge  that  has  also  been 
turned  down,  but  in  the  autumn.  Consequently,  although  it 
does  not  always  pay  a  single  estate  to  turn  out  either,  it  would 
pay  the  sporting  interest  of  a  county  to  do  it.  Quail  lay  from 
10  to  20  eggs,  rear  most  of  their  young,  and  10,000  of  these 
birds  can  be  had  in  the  spring  for  about  ;^400.  That  is  not 
much  for  an  addition  of  10,000  game  birds  to  a  county  in  a 
time  when  each  head  killed  costs  from  3s.  6d.  to  5s. ;  but  when 
the  chances  of  the  breeding  of  these  10,000  are  taken  into 
account,  it  becomes  a  likely  50,000  and  a  possible  100,000  extra 
game  birds.  What  does  it  matter  that  those  not  shot  are  lost 
to  the  county?  They  will  be  re-imported  from  Africa  and  Italy 
another  season,  and  can  be  again  bought  alive,  instead  of  being 
killed  for  the  London  hotels  and  clubs.  We  are  fond  of 
deploring  the  extermination  of  these  migrants,  but  the  receiver 
is  as  bad  as  the  catcher,  especially  when  he  eats  in  the  breeding 
season  that  which  he  professes  to  wish  to  preserve.  Even  on 
the  lowest  ground  of  self-interest,  a  quail  turned  out  in 
England  is  worth  many  dead  ones. 

The  scientific  name  of  the  quail  is  Coturnix  communis,  and 


364  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

this  migrant  is  not  to  be  confused  with  the  non-migratory 
"  Virginian  Colin,"  "  Bob-white,"  or  more  truly  partridge,  the 
scientific  name  of  which  is  Ortyx  virginianus. 

Quail  are  beautiful  birds  to  shoot  over  dogs,  and  although 
they  will  not  drive,  the  shooting  of  them  over  dogs  can  be 
indulged  without  doing  any  injury  to  partridge  driving. 

The  Landrail 

There  is  no  better  bird  for  the  table  than  the  landrail,  but 
he  is  hardly  a  sporting  bird.  His  flight  is  very  slow,  but  he  is 
sometimes  missed  by  quick  shots  who  have  been  shooting  rapid 
rising  partridges  and  ^shoot  too  quickly  at  these  slow  flying 
birds.  The  landrail  has  from  7  to  10  eggs,  breeds  successfully 
in  insect-breeding  seasons,  and  has  been  shot  in  large  numbers 
in  a  single  field.  A  little  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago, 
Mr.  Farrer,  Mr.  C.  W.  Digby,  and  Alex.  M.  Luckham  shot  24^ 
or  25 1  couple  of  landrail  in  a  field  of  clover-heads  at  the  end  of 
Nine  Barrow  Down,  Purbeck  ;  and  in  1905  there  weire  26|  couple 
killed  in  the  day  about  two  miles  west  of  this  field.  Sparrow 
hawks  used  to  be  trained  especially  for  taking  landrails,  as 
mentioned  in  Chafin's  History  of  Cranhourne  C/iace,  dated  1818. 
In  1880  there  were  211  landrails  shot  at  Acryse  Park,  Folke- 
stone, and  35  birds  in  one  day  by  two  guns  in  two  clover-fields. 
The  landrail,  or  corncrake,  is  known  as  Crex pratensis. 

Teal 

The  teal  breeds  freely  in  this  country,  and  only  requires  to 
be  less  often  shot  in  the  early  days  of  the  shooting  season  to 
multiply  rapidly.  In  those  early  days  it  affords  no  sport,  but 
becomes  a  wonderful  flyer  when  full  feathered.  It  has  from 
8  to  15  eggs.  No  captured  teal  can  be  made  use  of  for 
breeding,  but  their  eggs  are  easily  dealt  with,  just  as  those  of 
the  wild  duck  are  treated.  It  is  possible  to  introduce  teal  to  a 
new  place  by  placing  their  eggs  in  the  nests  of  moorhens. 
The  scientific  name  of  the  common  teal  is  Qucrquedula  crecca. 


A  VARIED  BAG  365 

The  Golden  Plover 

This  beautiful  bird  lays  4  eggs ;  it  breeds  on  all  suitable 
moorlands  in  this  country,  but  the  majority  of  the  golden 
plover  found  in  winter  are  migrants.  When  they  first  arrive, 
the  shooter  may  boldly  advance  to  a  flock  upon  the  ground, 
which  will  often  not  move  until  within  range;  but  the  bird  soon 
gets  wild,  although  after  a  successful  shot  the  flock  will  often 
return  to  see  what  is  the  matter  with  •  its  disabled  or  dead 
comrades.     Its  scientific  name  is  Charadrius  pluvialis. 

Roe  Deer 

Too  frequently  the  roe  deer  is  killed  in  August,  whereas  then 
he  is  never  in  condition.  In  driving  Scotch  woodlands  for  these 
little  deer,  a  very  few  good  beaters  are  better  than  a  great  crowd 
of  noisy  boys.  Shouting  and  talking  leads  to  the  deer  breaking 
back,  for  they  are  less  afraid  of  a  crowded  line  of  yelling  boys 
than  of  the  silent  unknown  enemy  which  gives  but  an  occasional 
tap  together  of  two  sticks.  This  is  a  more  effectual  plan  than 
tapping  the  tree  trunks.  Six  beaters  in  this  way  can  be  effective 
in  a  beat  half  a  mile  wide,  and  will  send  the  deer  forward,  where 
forty  shouting  boys  will  cause  all  the  deer  to  break  away  at  the 
flanks,  or  to  lie  still  until  the  line  has  passed,  and  then  to 
"  break  back."  The  reason  is  probably  that  when  the  path  of 
each  boy  is  accurately  to  be  gauged  by  the  sound  made,  the 
deer  know  whether  they  will  have  to  move  or  not  long  before 
the  line  approaches  near,  and  consequently  act  just  in  that  way 
which  is  best  to  avoid  a  known  danger.  But  the  few  beaters, 
with  the  occasional  tap  of  a  stick,  is  something  quite  unknown, 
and  the  nerves  of  the  deer  cannot  stand  it.  They  are  up  and 
off"  long  before  the  line  approaches  near,  and  they  flee  not  to  the 
flanks  or  back,  but  straight  ahead. 

Roe  deer  are  as  easily  killed  with  shot  guns  as  hares — 
indeed,  more  easily.  The  writer  has  known  one  to  be  killed 
with  No.  6  shot  at  60  yards  range,  and  instantaneously 
dead,  too.     It  seems  to  be  causing  unnecessary  danger  to  take 


366  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

out  high  velocity  or  express  rifles  for  these  deer  drives ;  and 
besides,  with  them  it  is  impossible  to  make  a  bag  of  winged 
game  at  the  same  time.  A  rabbit  rifle  is  hardly  powerful 
enough  to  avoid  wounding  and  losing  deer,  unless  the  vitals  are 
hit  with  an  expanding  bullet,  and  as  the  roe  is  generally  shot 
running,  the  author  is  not  inclined  to  condemn  the  use  of 
the  shot  gun  as  unsportsmanlike.  No.  4  shot  are  equally 
useful  for  roe  deer  and  capercailzie  and  black  game,  or  the 
three  principal  occupants  of  the  Scotch  woodlands.  Pheasants 
also  can  be  equally  well  killed  with  No.  4  shot  as  with 
No.  6,  and  will  be  the  better  for  the  table  by  reason  of  the 
change.  If  a  rifle  of  any  kind  is  used,  an  expanding  bullet  is 
by  far  the  best  to  avoid  wounded  beasts  getting  away.  Roe  deer 
are  often  condemned  as  inferior  to  mutton,  but  the  writer  is 
not  of  that  opinion.  Half  the  mutton  is  spoilt  in  flavour  by 
the  "  dressings,"  or  rather  "  dips,"  used  for  the  protection 
from  or  cure  of  sheep  scab — a  horrible  disease  with  a  filthy 
cure. 

The  Ptarmigan 

Ptarmigan  are  generally  walked  up  by  a  line  of  guns  when 
a  party  can  all  be  got  to  ascend  to  the  high  tops  inhabited  by 
these  birds,  Alpine  hares,  and  little  life  besides,  except  for 
the  eagles,  which  greatly  appreciate  both  bird  and  mammal. 
The  eagle  has  been  known  to  strike  down  a  ptarmigan  in  the 
air,  although  it  probably  catches  them  generally  on  the  ground. 
The  reason  why  dogs  are  not  much  used  for  ptarmigan  is  that 
the  almost  constant  foot  scent  of  hares  leads  to  false  pointing  or 
else  to  hunting  their  lines  ;  both  tricks  are  equally  objectionable, 
and  show  that  the  dogs  have  only  been  partially  broken, 
possibly  in  the  absence  of  hares.  In  a  hare  country  it  is  quite 
easy  to  have  high-couraged  dogs  that  will  point  hares  in  their 
seats  but  will  not  notice  the  foot  scents.  These  are  so  seldom 
seen,  though,  that  it  is  best,  in  their  absence,  to  walk  up  or  to  drive 
ptarmigan.  They  are  in  a  sense  the  wildest  of  British  game, 
but  it  is  a  wildness  that  induces  hiding  for  safety  rather 
than    flight.      Their    protective    coloration    enables    them    to 


A  VARIED  BAG  367 

deceive  their  greatest  enemies,  the  eagles  and  the  falcons,  and 
they  naturally  rely  on  the  device  of  absolute  stillness  to  escape 
detection  by  other  creatures.  Generally  they  fly  away  at  sight 
of  an  eagle,  but  lie  stone  close  when  a  falcon  comes  in  view. 
The  eagle  can  sometimes  kill  them  on  the  wing,  but  this  is  more 
frequently  the  falcon's  method,  and  the  birds  know  it.  In 
winter  they  change  to  white,  and  the  snow  affords  them  pro- 
tection, not  only  because  of  its  similar  whiteness,  but  also 
because  they  bury  themselves  in  it  for  safety  as  well  as  for  food. 
In  summer  they  are  grey  and  white,  showing  grey  from  above 
and  looking  white  on  taking  flight.  It  is  a  mistake  to  say  that 
they  feed  upon  heather ;  the  majority  of  ptarmigan  live  winter 
and  summer  above  the  highest  altitude  of  the  heather.  The 
number  of  birds  is  nowhere  very  great,  nor  could  they  be  ex- 
pected to  increase  very  much  ;  for  the  vegetation  on  which  they 
mostly  live  is  scanty  on  their  chosen  rocks,  and  is  indeed  the 
moss  which  grows  on  these  apparently  almost  bare  surfaces. 
Were  numbers  large,  ptarmigan  would  be  more  valued  as  game 
birds,  because  of  their  greater  activity  in  flight  than  the  red 
grouse.  Often  they  fly  like  rock  pigeons  leaving  their  cliff 
caves,  and,  unlike  the  red  grouse,  they  frequently  make  very 
steep  angle  flights  at  a  very  great  velocity  down  hill,  and  then 
they  can  twist  and  swerve  and  curve  in  a  wonderful  manner. 
To  be  seen  at  their  best  they  must  be  visited  in  October,  but  it 
is  dangerous  work  when  a  chance  exists  of  a  snowstorm. 
Ptarmigan  are  found  all  round  the  Arctic  circle,  although  some 
people  think  the  American  variety  a  different  species.  The 
birds  sold  in  the  game-dealers'  shops  as  ptarmigan  are  nearly 
always  willow  grouse  —  the  rype  of  Norway.  There  the 
ptarmigan  is  the  Fjeldrype,  and  in  Sweden  it  is  the  Fjallripa. 
Its  scientific  title  is  Lagopiis  niutus.  The  ptarmigan  is 
monogamous,  and  has  from  8  to  15  eggs.  Neither  nests  nor 
birds  are  easy  to  find  in  the  breeding  season,  and  on  the 
most  open  spaces,  where  there  is  no  covert  whatever,  the  bird 
frequently  escapes  observation  ;  and,  besides,  the  croak  of  the  bird 
is  very  misleading,  and  will  rarely  assist  in  the  discovery  of  the 
locality  of  origin  of  the  voice.     Probably  the  rocks  assist  this 


368  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

ventriloquism.  Ptarmigan  are  not  found  in  England  or 
Ireland,  and  no  farther  south  than  the  Grampians  on  the  main- 
land, and  Islay  in  the  isles  of  Scotland.  The  largest  bag  ever 
made,  as  far  as  is  known  to  the  author,  was  the  122  obtained  by 
the  late  Hon.  G.  R.  C.  Hill  at  Auchnashellach  on  25th  August, 
1866.  But  the  142  obtained  in  the  year  on  the  whole  of  the 
Duke  of  Sutherland's  property  in  1880,  when  over  50,000  grouse 
were  shot,  much  nearer  shows  how  little  sport  may  be  expected 
even  on  good  ground.  Ptarmigan,  in  common  with  grouse  and 
partridges,  feign  lameness  to  draw  an  enemy  away  from  their 
young. 

The  Coot 

This  is  an  excellent  bird  where  it  is  found  in  great  numbers, 
but  is  only  fitted  to  give  much  sport  by  driving.  It  rises  slowly, 
but  is  fast  when  on  the  wing,  flies  high,  and  takes  a  great  deal 
of  killing.  Colonel  Hawker  quite  rightly  advised  those  who 
would  have  wild  fowl  to  preserve  their  coots  and  not  to  keep 
tame  swans.  Wild  fowl  fancy  themselves  secure  in  the  presence 
of  coots,  which  are  most  wakeful  when  the  duck  by  day  are 
much  disposed  to  sleep.  Gallinula  chloropus,  the  moorhen, 
gives  no  sport,  but  is  good  training  for  retrievers.  Linnaeus  gave 
the  title  Fulica  atra  to  the  coot.     It  lays  from  7  to  10  eggs. 

The  Widgeon,  or  the  Whew  Bird 

This  bird  breeds  seldom  in  Scotland  and  Ireland,  but  large 
quantities  come  from  abroad  in  the  hard  weather  ;  they  are  the 
principal  attraction  of  the  punt  gunner,  and  afford  the  chief  profit 
of  the  decoy  man.  The  way  to  find  widgeon  is  to  discover 
their  chief  food,  the  Zostera  marina  of  the  mud  flats,  and  then 
wait  for  hard  weather  and  the  night,  when  they  feed.  Mareca 
Penelopes  is  its  scientific  name. 

Wild  Geese 

The  grey  lag  is  the  handsomest  of  these,  and  the  only  one 
that  breeds  in  Britain,  and  there  only  in  the  extreme  north  of 


A  VARIED  BAG  369 

Scotland.  It  goes  South  early,  and  affords  little  or  no  winter 
shooting  in  this  country.  In  the  early  autumn  some  flight 
shooting  and  stalking  are  to  be  had  in  its  breeding  homes. 


The  Pink-footed  Goose 

This  is  the  principal  of  the  grey  geese  to  afford  sport ;  it  is 
this  species  that  gives  such  a  great  deal  of  shooting  on  the 
north  Norfolk  coast,  but  it  is  not  found  in  Ireland,  which  is 
famed  in  winter  for  its  black  geese — the  locally  miscalled  bernicle, 
i.e.  the  brent  goose,  which,  if  not  now  found  in  thousands  of 
acres,  as  described  in  Wild  Sports  of  the  West,  are  still  migrants 
in  their  hundreds  of  thousands. 

The  brent  goose  is  entirely  a  marine  feeder,  and  is  con- 
sequently, along  with  the  widgeon,  the  great  game  of  the  punt 
gunner.  There  are  many  other  varieties  of  geese,  both  migrants 
and  introductions,  like  the  Canada  goose,  but  they  count  for 
very  little  in  sport  in  this  country,  whereas  in  Egypt,  on  the  Nile, 
wonderful  sport  has  been  had  with  Egyptian  geese,  and  there  is 
a  regular  harvest  for  Canada  geese  in  America,  where  as  many 
as  200  flighting  birds  have  been  shot  in  a  day  by  one  gunner. 
The  beginner  in  punt  gunning  cannot  do  better  than  buy  a 
second-hand  gun  and  punt,  and  learn  from  them  what  he  really 
wants,  which  will  never  be  quite  the  same  for  any  two  men. 
Much  depends  upon  the  man  himself,  whether  he  intends  to 
have  assistance,  and  whether  he  has  also  a  yacht  to  carry  him 
and  his  punt  and  guns  abroad.  As  many  people  have  started 
this  sport  who  have  not  gone  on  with  it,  probably  advertising 
for  the  outfit  would  be  a  certain  way  of  obtaining  it  at  small 
cost,  even  if  the  gun-shops  were  drawn  blank,  which  is  not 
likely  at  any  time.  To  be  a  punt  gunner,  one  has  to  place 
oneself  at  the  call  of  the  wind,  at  the  mercy  of  the  wave,  and  to 
become  the  plaything  of  the  tide.  But  then  revenge  is  sweeping, 
if  it  is  not  also  sweet. 


24 


DISEASES  OF  GAME  BIRDS 

A  FEW  weeks  before  the  Field  induced  Dr.  Klein  to  take 
up  the  question  of  grouse  disease  and  to  go  to  Scotland 
to  investigate,  the  author  had  prevailed  upon  M.  Pasteur  to  offer 
to  examine  the  disease,  and  it  was  after  this  was  announced 
in  the  Times  and  Morning  Post  that  Dr.  Klein  began  his 
work.  The  author  regretted  that  he  did  undertake  it,  because 
it  just  prevented  the  necessary  grouse  being  sent  to  M.  Pasteur, 
and  that  great  man  had  a  way  not  only  of  discovering 
bacilli  but  also  of  some  way  of  killing  them.  Dr.  Klein 
may  or  may  not  have  discovered  the  bacillus  of  the  grouse 
disease,  but  if  so  he  never  gave  the  disease  to  a  healthy  grouse, 
nor  did  he  even  attempt  to  discover  a  cure  for  or  prevention 
from  the  disease,  and  however  interesting  to  science  his 
discovery  may  have  been,  it  was  of  no  use  in  practice.  If  he  did 
really  discover  the  cause  of  the  disease,  and  if  grouse  are  only 
subject  to  take  the  disease  in  the  same  manner  as  the  creatures 
to  which  he  administered  his  disease,  then  there  appears  no 
escape  from  the  conclusion  that  the  disease  is  injected  under 
the  skin  of  healthy  grouse. 

Every  one  knows  that  grouse  disease  generally  shows  signs 
of  its  coming,  and  yet  when  it  really  attacks  a  bird  the  latter 
often  dies  within  a  few  hours.  The  author  consequently  does 
not  believe  that  the  bare  legs  and  dull  plumage  associated  with 
grouse  disease  always  imply  that  the  birds  have  the  disease,  but 
only  that  they  are  in  a  condition  in  which  they  can  more  easily 
take  it,  or  have  had  and  recovered  from  it.  This  view  is 
supported  by  the  fact  that,  after  the  last  attack  of  grouse  disease 
in  Badenoch,  it  was  noticed  when  the  birds  re-started  to  breed 

370 


DISEASES  OF  GAME  BIRDS  371 

that  the  young  ones  were  well  feathered  on  the  legs  and  the  old 
birds  were  not.  What  had  happened  to  those  old  grouse? 
Had  they  had  the  disease  and  recovered  from  it,  or  had  they 
only  had  that  predisposing  indisposition  that  causes  the  leg 
feathers  to  fall  off  and  the  other  feathers  to  look  dull  ?  If  they 
had  had  the  disease,  then  it  is  not  as  fatal  as  Dr.  Klein's 
experiments  suggest.  The  chances  are  that  tapeworm  or 
any  other  parasites,  or  even  prolonged  wet  summers  or  bad 
food,  will  predispose  the  grouse  to  the  reception  of  bacilli, 
possibly  by  midge  bites  on  bare  legs  conveying  disease  from 
the  sick  to  the  healthy.  This  view  is  supported  by  the  fact 
that  the  grouse  never  get  the  disease,  however  bad  their  food 
and  however  bare  their  legs  in  the  hard  winter  weather,  but 
only  when  it  is  warm  and  damp  and  there  are  lots  of  midge 
flies. 

It  has  often  been  said  that  all  game  birds  and  domestic 
poultry  are  subject  to  the  same  diseases,  and  it  is  frequently 
suggested  that  the  grouse  disease,  pheasant  disease,  and  fowl 
diseases  are  all  one  and  the  same.  That  is  an  extraordinary 
belief,  because  pheasant  disease  nearly  always  occurs  when  the 
foster-parents  from  the  barn  door  remain  perfectly  healthy. 
These  views  have  had  a  still  further  upset  in  the  summer  of 
1906,  by  the  fact  that  a  large  number  of  foster-mothers  died  of 
enteritis,  but  without  any  of  the  pheasants  becoming  sick.  It 
is  quite  clear  that  the  pheasant  disease  of  the  rearing-fields  is  as 
much  a  mystery  as  it  was  before  pathological  research  began, 
and  is  one  of  those  things  that  is  waiting  for  investigation. 
How  it  is  spread  is  not  even  known.  Post-mortem  examinations 
without  bacteriological  research  are  freely  made,  and  opinions  as 
freely  offered,  generally  ending  in  a  recommendation  to  keep 
fewer  birds.  This  advice  is  very  wisely  not  followed  by  those 
who  want  more,  not  less,  sport.  And  the  preservers  have  this  in 
their  favour,  that  pheasants  increase  in  numbers  every  year  in 
spite  of  disease.  Game  preservers  are  in  these  times  well  aware 
that  opinions  given  on  a  mere  inspection  of  the  internal  organs 
can  neither  lead  to  true  knowledge  of  the  cause  of  deaths  nor 
even  to   wise  suggestions  of  how  infection    may  be   avoided . 


372  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

It  is  not  known  whether  the  chicks  catch  the  disease  from  the 
breath  of  already  diseased  birds,  from  foul  feeding  on  excreta- 
tainted  ground,  or  from  inoculation  by  means  of  fleas 
or  other  vermin.  Although  these  points  could  be  set  at  rest 
in  a  week  when  disease  breaks  out,  it  never  has  been  done. 
It  seems  more  likely  that,  as  in  cramps,  the  disease  bacillus  is 
present  in  soils  suitable  for  it,  and  not  in  others,  or  else  that 
some  soils  favour  the  development  of  the  diseases  in  the  birds. 
The  only  way  known  to  avoid  either  of  these  diseases  is  to 
avoid  the  ground  on  which  they  occur,  but  numbers  of  birds  do 
not  create  either  disease.  The  perfect  health  usually  found  on 
the  game  farms  proves  this.  There  they  generally  have  as  many 
pheasants  on  lOO  acres  as  sportsmen  expect  on  10,000  acres. 
As  with  grouse,  the  greater  the  stocks  the  more  healthy  the 
birds  seem  to  be. 

Partridges  are  most  attacked  by  a  disease  known  as  "the 
gapes."  Hand-reared  birds  can  be  dealt  with  more  or  less 
successfully  by  means  of  fumigation.  Carbolic  acid  crystals  are 
volatilised  on  a  hot  shovel  within  a  closed  coop  containing  the 
affected  birds.  However,  this  is  a  clumsy  way  of  dealing  with 
the  matter,  and  the  best  plan  is  to  move  the  birds  that  show 
signs  of  being  troubled  with  the  disorder  to  the  woods,  where 
they  can  get  lots  of  insect  food  as  it  falls  from  the  trees.  This 
applies  to  both  partridges  and  pheasants.  In  the  wild  state  the 
former  are  most  subjected  to  "  gapes  "  when  the  weather  is  very 
hot  and  dry.  It  is  not  known  how  the  worm  that  is  the  cause 
of  the  trouble  gets  into  the  air  passages. 

There  is  a  large  number  of  other  diseases  to  which  game 
birds  are  subject,  but  a  preserver  who  can  avoid  those  mentioned 
need  not  trouble  about  the  others.  That  is  the  reason  they  are 
not  mentioned  in  this  work  on  Shooting. 

But  an  additional  word  may  perhaps  be  said  on  grouse 
disease.  A  Departmental  Committee  of  Investigation  has  been 
formed  by  the  late  President  of  the  Board  of  Agriculture  to 
investigate  the  disease.  One  of  its  first  acts  was  to  issue 
a  pamphlet  to  correspondents  to  show  what  had  already  been 
said  and  thought  about  the  disease.     None  of  these  old  faiths 


DISEASES  OF  GAME  BIRDS 


373 


are  in  agreement  with  Dr.  Klein's  conclusions  as  they  stand, 
but  it  only  needs  one  factor  to  be  assumed  to  bring  them  into 
agreement,  as  will  be  seen  by  the  following  table : — 


A   list  of  supposed    causes  of  grouse 
disease   that  are   in  disagreement 
with  Dr.  Klein's  conclusions. 

A   list  of  supposed   causes  of  grouse 
disease    that    are    in     agreement 
with  Dr.  Klein's  conclusions,  pro- 
vided   subcutaneous    injection    of 
the  bacilli  by  an  insect  is  assumed — 
probably  the  midge  fly. 

Tapeworm. 

Cobbold's  Strongylus. 

Bad  food. 

Over  stocking. 

Bad  water. 

Wet  warm  weather. 

Bog  or  floe  ground. 

Tapeworm. 

Cobbold's  Strongylus. 

Bad  food. 

Bad  water. 

Wet  warm  weather. 

Bog  or  floe  ground. 

The  first  four  acting  by  debility  to 
impoverish  the  blood  and  the 
plumage,  so  as  to  allow  the 
midge  to  get  at  the  skin,  especially 
of  the  legs.  The  last  two  acting 
by  enabling  the  insects  to  breed. 

It  may  be  remarked  that  it  is  no  answer  to  say  that  tape- 
worm cannot  be  a  cause  of  predisposition  to  disease,  because 
it  is  always  present.  It  is  greatly  more  in  evidence  some 
years  than  in  others.  The  author  never  in  any  other  year 
than  1873  saw  quantities  of  shot  grouse  from  which  tapeworms 
exuded  in  yards  of  entangled  mass  from  the  shot  wounds  of 
the  dead  birds.  Then,  however,  they  did  so,  and  had  to  be 
withdrawn  from  the  birds  before  the  latter  could  be  bagged 
The  birds  could  not  have  been  left  upon  the  moor,  because  the 
dogs  would  have  gone  back  for  them.  Yet  with  all  these 
worms  the  only  evidence  of  disease  was  an  absence  of  much 
leg  feathering.  The  owner  of  Glenbuchat  has  been  good 
enough  to  tell  the  author  that  disease  broke  out  there  in  1872 
after  the  shooting  season,  but  he  never  before  heard  of  any 
disease  in  that  year,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  grouse  at 
Aldourie,  in  Inverness-shire,  not  far  away,  bred  well  in  1873, 
and  only  were  attacked  by  the  disease  later  than  the  shooting 
season  of  that  year.     But  even    1874,  the  great  disease  year, 


374  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

was  by  no  means  universally  bad.  That  autumn  they  had  a 
splendid  crop  of  grouse  in  perfect  health  at  Crossmount,  in 
Perthshire.  The  Rannoch  Lodge  ground  was  only  fair  that 
year,  but  the  author's  party  there  was  credited  in  the  Scotch 
papers  with  the  record  bag  for  that  season,  probably  wrongly, 
as  there  was  not  one  bird  for  five  compared  with  the  little 
moor  of  Crossmount.  1873  was  very  wet  in  the  August  and 
September  shooting  season,  and  the  writer  never  before  or 
since  saw  so  many  midges  as  in  that  season.  That  grouse 
disease  does  not  attack  in  winter  (although  many  grouse  die 
then  and  in  the  spring  of  various  complaints)  also  tends  to 
prove  that  the  bacilli  must  have  an  intermediate  host  that  is 
not  in  evidence  in  the  cold  weather.  Then  the  disease  is  not 
known  in  Ireland  and  in  the  Lews,  where  the  climate  is  mild 
and  damp  and  encouraging  to  midge  flies.  But  there  is  really 
no  place  that  the  midge  can  attack  a  grouse  as  long  as  he  is 
full  feathered,  and  in  the  mild  climate  even  if  there  were 
starvation  there  would  not  be  bad  food.  But  it  may  very  well  be 
that  the  bacilli  do  not  exist  in  Ireland  or  the  Lews,  and  until 
it  is  proved  that  they  do  exist  there  it  is  beside  the  mark  to  set 
aside  the  evidence  to  be  had  where  they  do  exist,  only  because 
it  does  not  conform  to  that  of  a  place  where  they  are  unknown. 
For  some  reason  that  the  author  is  not  aware  of,  the  Fields 
which  commissioned  Dr.  Klein's  investigations,  seems  to  have 
thrown  over  his  conclusions  entirely.  Without  any  remark 
upon  the  wisdom  or  otherwise  of  this  course,  it  is  necessary 
to  show  how  thoroughly  it  disagrees  with  them.  At  random 
the  author  takes  the  issue  of  October  6th,  1906,  and  he  finds 
therein  these  four  references  to  grouse  disease.  At  page  581 
is  stated  that  "  pneumo-enteritis  is  the  technical  name  of  the 
grouse  disease."  On  page  591,  Mr.  W.  B.  Tegetmeier  writes  : 
"  During  the  present  year  the  number  of  grouse  that  I  have 
seen  affected  by  disease  has  been  unusually  small,  not  half  a 
dozen  from  all  parts  of  the  kingdom.  The  extension  of  the 
disease  to  blackcock  is  an  interesting  fact  that  should  be 
known.  The  disease  appears  to  confine  itself  almost  exclusively 
to  gallinaceous  birds." 


DISEASES  OF  GAME  BIRDS  375 

On  the  same  page  the  Field  says :  '*  Partridges  were 
practically  exempt  from  pneumo-enteritis  as  long  as  they 
were  allowed  to  breed  naturally,  but  overcrowded  on  foul 
ground  they  will  become  as  subject  to  it  as  pheasants."  And 
on  page  592,  in  reference  to  pheasants  it  is  said,  "The  birds 
died  from  very  severe  pneumo-enteritis."  On  September  22nd, 
page  531,  Mr.  Tegetmeier  has  an  article  in  which  he  seeks 
every  means  of  discovering  why  foster-mothers  have  died  of  the 
disease  and  the  pheasants  have  not  died.  Consequently,  it  is 
evident  that  the  journal  treats  this  disease  as  one  and  the  same 
in  all  species  of  gallinaceous  birds.  But  Dr.  Klein  said  at 
page  38  of  his  book  on  grouse  disease,  "  In  pigeons  and  fowls 
the  subcutaneous  inoculation  is  not  followed  by  any,  not  even 
a  local,  positive  result ;  the  animals  remained  lively  and  well." 
In  fact,  Dr.  Klein  failed  to  give  the  disease  he  had  discovered 
to  fowls  or  any  gallinaceous  birds  whatever,  but  he  said,  "  The 
most  striking  results  were  obtained  on  the  common  bunting 
and  the  yellow-hammer,  for  the  injection  of  a  small  drop  of  the 
broth  culture  into  the  leg  is  followed  by  fatal  results." 

Obviously,  if  the  Field  is  right  now,  Dr.  Klein  did  not 
discover  the  grouse  disease  bacillus.  And  if  he  did  discover 
it,  any  fowls  dead  from  or  sick  with  disease  may  at  once  be 
regarded  as  victims  of  something  else ;  and  other  gallinaceous 
birds  must  be  suspected  in  consequence  of  being  refractory  to 
the  grouse  disease. 

The  author's  belief  is  that  Dr.  Klein  did  discover  the 
bacillus,  although  he  failed  to  prove  it,  and  that  his  experiments 
on  buntings,  fowls,  and  other  creatures  went  to  suggest  that 
the  grouse  is  not  a  natural  host  of  the  bacilli,  that  it  or  its 
virus  becomes  attenuated  or  weakened  every  time  it  passes 
through  a  grouse,  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  it  becomes  more 
virulent  in  passing  through  buntings  and  yellow-hammers. 
This  was  suggested  by  the  weakness  of  the  virulence  from  the 
bacilli  cultivated  from  the  diseased  autumnal  grouse  after  a 
severer  spring  outbreak,  and  it  is  also  suggested  by  the  fact 
that  in  such  cases  the  grouse  do  not  die  rapidly,  and  that  it  is 
a  slow  disease  from  which  perhaps  some  grouse  recover ;  whereas 


376  THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 

they  do  not  recover  in  the  spring.  The  writer's  suggestion 
is,  therefore,  that  when  the  bacillus  is  carried  from  grouse  to 
grouse  it  may  be  weakened,  but  that  in  spring  it  is  not  originated 
in  the  grouse,  but  in  some  creature  unknown,  and  possibly  a 
migrant  bird  of  the  bunting,  hammer,  or  finch  families.  The 
importance  of  finding  this  out,  and  testing  the  attenuation 
theory  more  thoroughly  in  live  grouse,  is  obvious,  for  if  it  is 
true  that  the  blood  of  successive  grouse  gradually  weakens  the 
bacilli  or  their  virus,  then  it  is  clear  that  the  safety  of  grouse 
will  be  the  constant  presence  of  some  few  diseased  grouse  on 
the  moor. 

The  author  only  dwells  on  this  aspect  because  it  is  not 
receiving  as  much  attention  as  some  others,  which  are  constantly 
being  discussed,  and  are  therefore  less  necessary  to  mention. 

At  present  thought  is  mostly  in  the  contrary  direction. 
But  it  is  to  be  hoped  and  believed  that  the  Commissioners 
will  investigate  every  possible  view  from  a  scientific  standpoint, 
and  more  important  still,  from  a  practical  one.  For  instance, 
if  on  a  disease  affected  moor  grouse  can  be  kept  in  health 
in  a  pen  of  midge-proof  netting,  we  shall  hardly  need  to  know 
where  the  midge  gets  his  poison,  but  shall  be  exceedingly 
likely  to  dry  up  his  breeding-places  and  exterminate  him  as 
nearly  as  may  be. 


INDEX 


Abbott,  Mr.,  184. 

Accident  to  valuable  dog,  104. 

Actions  of  guns,  48. 

Aldridge's  annual  dog  sales,  104. 

Alexander,  Mr.,  199. 

Alington,  Mr.  Charles,  259,  262,  289. 

Alnwick,  338. 

Ames,  Mr.  Hobart,  97. 

Ammunition,  56-62. 

Ancient     and     Middle    Age    shooting, 

13-22, 
Ancient  actions,  1-3. 

breech-loader,  2,  3. 

Venetian  cannon,  3. 

weapon  without  cartridge  case,  i. 

Antelopes,  358. 
Ardilaun,  Lord,  335. 
Arkwright,  Mr.  W.,  126,  224. 
Armstrong,  John,  141. 
Ashburton,  Lord,  249. 
Ashford,  335,  340. 
Assheton-Smith,  Mr.,  323. 
Automatic  rifles,  4-12. 
Avon  Tyrrell,  317. 

Backing,  112. 

Badminton  Books,  loi. 

Balmacaan,  270. 

Bamboo  partridge  {Bamhusicola),  269. 

Bang,  Mr.  Sam  Price's,  130. 

Barclay,  Mr.  James  W.,  245. 

Beaters,  clothes  for,  300. 

Beaulieu,  286. 

Bedford,  Duke  and  Duchess  of,  346, 

Beechgrove  Bee,  199. 

Bell,  Robert,  letter  from,  257. 

Belle,  Mr.  Lloyd  Price's,  130. 

Big  game,  358-360. 

Bishop,  Mr.  Elias,  132. 

Mr.  James,  140. 

Black-and-tan  setter,  the,  168-175. 
Black  game,  bags,  344,  345. 

colouring,  341. 

counties  for,  341. 

eggs,  346. 

—  season,  341. 


Black  game,  species,  341. 

stalking,  343. 

Blubberhouse  Moor,  226. 

Boar-hounds  (German),  196. 

Boss  &  Co.,  52. 

Boughey,  Sir  Thomas,  132,  198. 

Brackenbury,  Mr.,  129. 

Bradford,  Lord  (Lord  Newport),  245. 

Brailsford,  Mr.  W.,  135. 

Branches  of  pointers,  128. 

Breaking  dogs,  107. 

Breech-loader,  ancient,  23. 

Broomhead,  230,  231. 

Brown,  Mr.  Allan,  229. 

Buccleuch,  Duke  of,  344. 

Buffalo,  358. 

Butter,  Mr.  H.  E.,  105. 

Caminelleo  Vittelli  of  Pistoia,  4. 
Campbell,  Colonel,  of  Monzie,  230. 
Cannon,  ancient  Venetian,  3. 
Capercailzie,  361. 

at  Woburn  Abbey,  346. 

Chantrey,  340. 
Chapman,  Mr.,  172. 

Mr.  Abel,  314. 

Cheetham,  Mr.,  161. 

Chemists,  i. 

Chesterfield,  Lord,  174. 

Cheveley,  253. 

Chippenham,  253. 

Chipping  Norton,  253. 

Choke-bore  shot-gun,  29. 

Christie,  Mr.  Charles,  245. 

Chronographic  testing,  38. 

"Circling"  dogs  of  old,  16. 

Close  time,  234. 

Coke,  Lord,  255. 

Colt  revolver,  6. 

Compton  Pride,    Mr.    B.  J,   Warwick's, 

137. 
Cooke,  Mr.  Radcliffe,  185. 
Coot,  the,  368. 
Corbet,  Sir  Vincent,  140. 
Corrie,  Mr.  Wynn,  224,  22S,  229. 
Cotes,  Colonel  C.  J.,  132. 


378 


THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 


Country  Life,  2.(if),  323. 

Count  Wind'em,  143. 

County  Gentleman,  53. 

Coverts,  293. 

Crack  shots,  88-100. 

Cross-eyed  stocks,  50. 

Cumming,  Sir  William  Gordon,  253. 

and  his  keeper,  letters  from, 

256-258. 
Cylinder  shot-gun,  29. 

Dallowgill  Moor,  226,  231. 

Dan,  Mr.  Statter's,  141. 

Dan  Wind'em,  Mr.  Llewellin's,  143. 

Darwinism,  193. 

Dash  II,  John  Armstrong's,  141. 

Davies,  Mr.  George,  161. 

De  Grey,  Lord,  70. 

Deer  in  Scotland,  354. 

rifles  and  shot  for,  354. 

roe,  365. 

Deer-hound,  Scotch,  196. 
Delnadamph,  222,  230,  245. 
Derby,  Lord,  273. 
Diseases  of  game  birds,  370. 
Dog's  point,  walking  up  to,  224. 
Dog  sales,  Aldridge's  annual,  104. 

shows,  103. 

trials,  102. 

Dogs  and  sport  in  America,  151-159. 

colour  of,  197. 

evolution,  193. 

gun-shy,  108. 

Drake,  Sir  Richard  Garth's,  1 29. 

Drumlanrig  Castle,  344. 

Drumour,  353. 

Ducie,  Lord,  247. 

Duck  shooting,  best  shot  for,  306. 

Ducks,  difficulty  in  driving,  302, 

encouraging  the  fowl,  316. 

flapper  shooting,  316. 

flight-shooting,  308. 

management    of,    when     shooting, 

304,  305,  306. 

shore-shooting,  309. 

the  "gaze"  system,  313. 

Duke  of  Wellington  and  the  rifle,  18. 
Duleep  Singh,  Prince  F.,  99. 

Prince  Victor,  99. 

Dunbar,  Mr.,  216. 
Dunmore,  Lord,  245. 
Durnford  Bridge,  226. 
Duryea,  Mr.  H.  B.,  97. 
Mrs.,  97. 

Edinglassie,  245. 
Ejectors,  49. 
Elephants,  359. 


Eley,  Mr.  C.  C,  184. 

Mr.  Charles,  184. 

Ellesmere,  Lord,  252. 
Ellis,  Mr.  Thomas,  183. 
Elvedon,  247, 
English  setters,  139-150. 
Euston,  250,  263,  286,  291. 
Eversfield,  Mr.,  199. 
Evolution  of  the  dog,  193. 
Eynsham  Hall,  253,  353. 

Falcons,  208. 
Faskally  Bragg,  105. 
Fast  birds,  45. 
Fellowes,  Mr.,  253,  333. 
Field,  Mr.  Barclay,  158. 
Field,  The,  269. 
Field  trials,  114. 
Forbes,  Sir  Charles,  245. 

Sir  Charles  John,  245. 

Mr.  George,  245. 

Form  in  game  shooting,  76-87. 
Forsyth,  Rev.  A.  J.,  i. 
Fortnightly  Heview,  220. 
Fosbery  automatic  pistol,  6. 
Foxes  and  partridges,  247. 
French  army,  I. 
Fryer,  Mr.  P\  E.  R.,  70,  253. 

Gallwey,  Sir  R.  Payne,  333. 
Garth,  Sir  Richard,  129. 
Gas- tar,  320. 
Geddies,  Mr.  J.,  289. 
Geese,  grey  lag,  208. 

wild,  368. 

Gethin,  Mr.  Edward,  333. 

Gilbertson  &  Page,  Messrs.,  289. 

Gladstone,  Sir  John,  230,  253. 

Gxlenbuchat,  209,  222,  230,  245. 

Glenquoich,  231. 

Good  points  in  pointers  and  setters,  122, 

Goose,  pink-footed,  369. 

Gorse,  Mr.,  182. 

Grafton,  Duke  of,  250. 

Graham,  Sir  R.,  249. 

Granby,  Lord,  251,  262,  297. 

Grandtully,  230,  223. 

Gray,  Mr.  Thomson,  172. 

Greener,  Mr.  W.  W.,  7. 

Gregory,  Mr.  Pearson,  251. 

Griffith,  late  Mr.,  38. 

Grouse,  bags,  209,  226,  231,  232,  245. 

bags  over  dogs,  227. 

beating  for,  with  dogs,  241. 

becking,  221,  242. 

breeding  by  hand,  214. 

burning  the  heather,  214. 

butts,  239. 


INDEX 


379 


Grouse,  carting,  243. 

commission,  209. 

distribution  of,  204. 

draining  the  moors,  214. 

driving,  238. 

effect  of  Act  of  Parliament  on,  208, 

225. 

effect  of  bad  weather,  208. 

effect  of  colour  of  dogs  on,  244. 

effect  of  driving,  209. 

effect  of  falcons  on,  207. 

flankers,  239. 

grufifing,  243. 

kiting,  221,  242. 

methods  of  shooting,  214. 

on  tops,  222. 

presence  of  sheep,  214. 

preserving  and  bags,  214. 

shooting  on  the  stooks,  243. 

that  lie  and  grouse  that  fly,  204-213. 

vi'et-day  method  of  shooting,  244. 

Yorkshire,  207. 

Guisichan,  270. 

Gun  Club,  Notting  Hill,  349. 

Gunmakers'  opinions  of  rifles  wanted  to 

shoot  different  animals,  8-12. 
Gun-metal  for  old  cannon,  22. 
Gun-shy  dogs,  108. 
Guns  at  Waterloo,  15, 

Hackett,  Mr.,  140. 

Hagenbach,  Mr.,  269. 

Hail-shot    forbidden    in     England    and 

France,  17, 
Hall,  Mr.  A.,  157. 
Hall's  Field  B  powder,  95. 
Hardcastle,  Lieutenant,  62. 
Harding,  Captain,  185. 
Hares,  bags,  324, 

blue,  323. 

brown,  323. 

shooting,  326. 

Hargreaves,  Mr.  Robert,  314. 

Harlaxton,  263. 

Harting,  Mr.,  269. 

Hastings,  Lord,  340. 

Hawker,  Colonel,  206,  225,  335. 

method  of  trying  guns,   etc., 

61. 
Heather  beetle,  219. 

destruction,  219. 

Hibbert,  Hon.    A.    Holland,    192,   193, 

262,  289. 
High  Force,  231. 
Hiil,  Hon.  G.,  85. 

late  Lord,  85. 

Hirsch,  Baron,  259. 
Holkham,  249,  254,  286,  292. 


Honingham,  253. 
Houghton,  291. 
Hutchinson,  Rev.  Mr.,  169. 

Invention  of  gunpowder,  15. 

of  rifles,  171. 

of  wheel-lock,  17. 

Inventions  made  by  chemists,  I. 
Involuntary  pull  of  single-triggers,  5,  52. 
Irish  setter,  the,  160-167. 
Italy's  invention  of  pistols,  4. 

Judy,  Mr.  Statter's,  140. 

Karolyi,  Count,  324. 
Kennels,  103. 

Duke  of  Gordon's,  103. 

Lord  Cawdor's,  103. 

Lord  Lovat's,  103. 

Lord  Rosslyn's,  104. 

Kidston,  Mr.  Glen,  252. 
Kinds  of  retrievers,  177. 
King,  Mr.  John,  164. 
Klein,  Dr.,  220,  370. 
Kynoch,  Messrs.,  357. 

Labrador  retriever,  the,  191-194. 

Labradors,  early,  194. 

Landrail,  the,  364. 

Lang,  Joseph,  131. 

Laverack,  Mr.,  141. 

Law-suit,  Robertson  v,  Purdey,  55. 

Leicester,  Lord,  253,  292,  333. 

Leverets,  324. 

Lichfield,  Lord,  136, 

Lilford,  Lord,  270. 

Lions,  358. 

Llewellin,  Mr.,   143. 

Lloyd,  Mr.,  333. 

Lloyd  Price,  Mr.,  130. 

Lonsdale,  Captain  H.  Heywood,  135. 

late  Mr.  A.  P.,  135. 

Louis  XV.,  I. 
Lovat,  Lord,  141. 

Mackintosh,  The,  240. 

Manners,  Lord,  317, 

Mannlicher,  357. 

Mansfield,  Lord,  324. 

Markham,  Gervaise,  173. 

Mark  II.  Lee-Enfield  carbine,  7. 

Marlow,  keeper  at  The  Grange,  254,  290. 

Mary  Rose's  ancient  cannon,  3. 

Mason,  Mr.  J.  F.,  253,  353. 

Match  between  bow  and  gun  at  Pacton 

Green,  19. 
Mauser  pistol,  5. 
Mawson,  Mr.,  133. 


38o 


THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 


Menzies  Castle,  225,  230. 

Methods    of   shooting    the   red   grouse, 

235-245. 

Milbank,  Sir  Fred.,  58,  199. 

Millais,  Mr.  J.  G.,  270. 

Millard,  Mr.,  285,  289. 

Mills,  Mr.  John,  of  Bisterne,  316. 

Mindszent,  324. 

Minie  rifle  adopted  by  army,  20. 

Missing,  source  of,  240, 

Mitchell,  Mr.  Herbert,  146. 

Montague,  Lord,  254. 

Moor,  draining  of,  233. 

Moors  of  Aberdeen,  205. 

of  Allan  and  Islay,  205. 

of  Caithness  and  Wigtonshire,  205. 

of  Devonshire  and  Dartmoor,  204. 

of   Ross-shire,    Sutherland,    Caith- 
ness, the  Lews,  Skye,  206. 

of  South  Wales,  205. 

Mottram,  Mr.,  333. 

Moulton  Paddocks,  253. 

Moy  Hall,  232. 

Muckross,  340. 

Munden  Single,  193. 

Naumann,  Mr.,  360. 

Navy  and  Army  competition,  7. 

Netherby,  303. 

New  Forest,  200,  254. 

shooting,  15. 

Nicholson,  Mr.,  133. 
Nitro  powders,  56. 
Northumberland,  Duke  of,  338. 
Netting  Hill  Gun  Club,  349. 

Orwell  Park,  249. 

Pacton  Green,  19. 
Pallavicini,  Count  A.,  324. 
Partridge  bags  and  driving,  259-266. 

in  Bohemia, Hungary,  etc.,  259,  266. 

eggs,  imported,  etc.,  258. 

Partridges,  distribution,  249. 

food,  ants'  eggs,  etc.,  248. 

hand-rearing,  247. 

incubation,  255. 

methods  of  preservation  of,  246-258. 

over  dogs,  262. 

"  packed,"  247. 

protection  by  sense,  246. 

Pasteur,  M.,  370. 
Peregrines,  destruction  of,  222. 
Pheasant,  Reeves,  268. 
Pheasants,  buying  eggs  of,  275. 

coops,  281. 

• — -  diff'erence  in  wild  and  tame  bred,  297. 
■  feathering,  colours,  etc.,  268. 


Pheasants,  food,  277,  278,  279,  283,  284. 

made  difficult,  235. 

made  to  fly  high,  293,  294,  295. 

Mongolian,  crosses  with  partridges, 

254. 

nests  taken,  287. 

origin  of,  274. 

penning,  275,  279,  280,  281,  282, 

283. 

protection  from  foxes,  290. 

scent,  288. 

species  of,  267. 

timidity  of,  293. 

Pheasant  shooting  a  hundred  years  ago, 

298. 

beaters,  299. 

dogs  for,  300. 

nets,  300,  301. 

over  spaniels,  202. 

"  sewins,"  300. 

through  leaves,  296. 

Pictures  of  sport,  old  and  new,  13. 
Pigeon  shooting,  347-353' 

species  of,  347. 

trap-shooting,  347. 

wild-rock,  351. 

wood,  351. 

wood,  bags,  353. 

Pilkington,  Mr.,  133. 
Pink -footed  goose,  369. 
Plover,  the  golden,  365. 
Pointer,  origin  of,  127. 
Pointers,  branches  of,  128. 
Pointers  and  setters,  101-125. 

points  in,  122. 

purchase  of,  121. 

Portland,  Duke  of,  253. 
Powerscourt,  Lord,  323. 
Practice  of  shooting,  the,  69-75. 
Priam,  Mr.  Whitehouse's,  131. 
Price,  Mr.  Lloyd,  183,  215,  321. 

Mr.  Sam,  130. 

Principles  of  making  automatic  rifles,  6. 
Pringle,  Mr.,  330,  332. 
Ptarmigan,  the,  366. 

Quail,  the,  362. 
Quartering,  in. 

Rabbit  shooting,  318-322. 

with  beaters,  319. 

with  dogs,  318. 

warrens,  enclosing  of,  322. 

Rabbits,  destruction  of  vermin,  320. 

ferreting,  321. 

food,  322. 

hunted  by  beagles,  318. 

in  bracken,  318. 


INDEX 


381 


Rabbits  in  covert,  318. 

in  heather,  318. 

lime-dressing,  321. 

preservation  of,  320. 

Rake,  Mr.  Hackett's,  140. 

Ranger,  Newton's,  129. 

Recoil,  57. 

Red  grouse,  214-234. 

Renardine,  289. 

Repeating  shot-guns,  6. 

Retriever,  the  Labrador,  191-194. 

origin  of,  191. 

Retrievers  and  their  breaking,  176. 

breaking,  188. 

entering  on  game,  189. 

kinds  of,  177. 

Rhiwlas,  215. 

warren,  321. 

Rhoebe,  Mr.  Statter's,  140. 

Rifle  taken  up  by  the  army,  20. 

Rifles  for  different  animals,  8. 

Rob  Roy,  Captain  Lonsdale's,  150. 

Roe  deer,  365. 

Romp's  Baby,  129. 

Romp,  Mr.  Brackenbury's,  129. 

Rose  of  Gerwn,  105. 

Ross,  Horatio,  350. 

Rothschild,  Hon.  Waltei,  269,  270,  271. 

Ruabon  Hills,  215,  224. 

Rushmore,  252. 

Safety  of  guns,  49. 
Sanquhar,  345. 
Schultze  gunpowder,  38. 
Seafield,  Lord,  270. 
Seal  shooting,  361. 
Second-hand  shot-guns,  23. 
Serjeantson,  Rev.  W.,  97. 
Setter,  the  black-and-tan,  168-175. 

the  Irish,  160-167. 

Setters,  dog  show,  105. 

English,  139-150. 

liver-and-white,  197. 

Shamrock,  Mr.  W.  Arkwright's,  131. 

Sharp,  Mr.  Isaac,  170. 

Shaw,  Mr.,  332,  339. 

Sheep,  removal,  233. 

Shirley,  Mr.,  1S2. 

Shooting,  ancient  and  Middle  Age,  13-22. 

schools,  25. 

Shot-guns,  on  the  choice  of,  23. 

Shots,  twelve  best,  in  Bailey's  Magazine, 

73- 

Shuter,  Mr.  Allan,  1S5. 
Sinclair,  Sir  Tollemache,  216. 
Single-trigger  double  guns,  52. 
Six  Mile  Bottom,  255. 
Size  of  shot-pellets,  32. 


Smith,  Mr.  Winton,  199. 
Smokeless  powder,  56. 
Smyth,  Sir  John,  19. 
Snipe,  329-334. 

bags,  332,  333. 

difficulty  of  shooting,  329. 

species  of,  329. 

Wilson,  330. 

Spaniel,  Blenheim,  195. 

breaking  of,  200. 

values,  201. 

Spaniels,  black-and-tan,  197. 

black  field,  196. 

clumber,  198. 

cocker,  195. 

dachshund  formation,  195. 

English  springer,  195,  200. 

Mr.  Eversfield,  198. 

field  trial  and  show,  202. 

King  Charles,  195. 

leaving  game  behind,  203. 

liver-and-white,  197. 

Nimrod,  198. 

of  South  Wales,  199. 

red,  197. 

retrieving,  201. 

Rosehill,  196,  198. 

Sussex,  195. 

water,  198. 

Welsh  springer,  195. 

Spur  fowl  {Galloperdix),  269. 
Stamina  trials,  102. 
Stanhope,  Sir  Spencer,  226. 
Statter,  Mr.  Thomas,    135. 
Stetchworth,  251,  252,  253,  254,  263. 
St.  Mary's  Loch,  342. 
Stone,  Dr.,  166. 
Suffolk,  sportsman  in,  176,  198. 
Swanton  Wood,  340. 

Tar-paper,  320. 

Teal,  364. 

Tegetmeier,  Mr.,  285,  374. 

Thomasson,  Captain,  209. 

Captain,  letter  from,  210. 

Thornton,  Colonel,  52,  208,  225. 

Tot-Meg}T,  324. 

Turner,  Mr.  Sidney,  137. 

Tweedmouth,  Lord,  185,  270. 

Twelve  best  shots,  92. 

Twelve-bore  guns,  26. 

Twici,  William,  verses  by,  328. 

Ussher,  Mr.  R.  J.,  339. 

Varied  bag,  a,  361-369. 
Varieties  and   species   of  the    pheasant, 
266-273. 


382 


THE  COMPLETE  SHOT 


Vaynol  Park,  323,  350. 
Velocity  of  light,  65. 
Venetian  cannon,  ancient,  3. 
Verses  in  head-keeper's  room   at  Sand- 
ringham,  87. 

Walsh,  Mr.  J.  H.,  170. 

Walsingham,  Lord,  37,  215,   227,  233, 

239,  353- 
Wapiti,  358, 

Warwick,  Mr.  B.  J.,  137. 
Webley  Foster  revolver,  5. 
Welbeck,  253. 
Wemmergill,  231. 
Westminster,  late  Duke  of,  136. 
Whitehouse,  Mr.,  131. 
Widgeon,  the,  368. 


Wild  geese,  368. 

Wild  wild-duck,  308-3 1 7. 

Williams,  Mr.  A.  T.,  105,  199. 

Wilson,  Mr.    Rimington,  73,  217,   220, 

228,  239. 
Winans,  Mr.  Walter,  69. 
Woburn  Abbey,  346. 
Wolf-hound,  Irish,  196. 
Wolseley,  Lord,  40. 
Woodcock  bags,  335. 
Woodcocks,  335-340. 
Wortley,  Mr.  A.  Stuart,  70. 
Wynn,  Sir  Watkin  William,  131. 

Xenophon,  325. 

Zebra,  358. 


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